Upper Stony Creek is a 1.2km stretch of concrete lined channel with a downstream retardation basin
surrounded by 6ha of open space within the suburb of Sunshine North, west of Melbourne. The existing social,
environmental and ecological values associated with the site are negligible.
The surrounding community is under-resourced for provision of open space as outlined in the “Greening the
West Strategic Plan", and the area is also one of the most poorly serviced in terms of open space within its
municipality.
A range of stakeholders including Melbourne Water (MW), City West water (CWW), Brimbank City Council (BCC),
Greenfleet Australia (GA), Places Victoria (PV) and Department of Environment Land Water and Planning
(DEWLP) have come together to develop a concept plan for the naturalisation of Stony Creek as part of MW's
Strategic Direction of 'Enhancing Life and Liveability' and CWW's Greening the West initiative.
The Upper Stony Creek Transformation Project is a brilliant example of how cooperation between governments
and government authorities, local councils, environmental and community groups can create a greener future
for our cities and towns. It demonstrates how practical approaches to greening our cities can address climate
change and deliver both environmental and local health benefits.
The restoration of Upper Stony Creek will create a quality urban landscape that re-establishes a biologically
diverse section of this waterway. It will contribute to community liveability, enhance ecological values and
enable the retention of storm water for reuse and irrigate local playing fields and green spaces. The Department
of Health and Human Services suggests access to quality open space is linked to improved health outcomes.
Providing a cool place to retreat to on hot days as well as a native bushland to immerse in nature, this
reforestation project will directly improve health and wellbeing in the community.
Current values
The creek currently provides little to no community, social or environmental values. The concreted channel
banks are harsh features in the waterway and their removal would significantly improve the amenity of the
waterway.
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Vision
Alluvium worked with all stakeholders to develop a vision for the project and guide the focus of effort.
“Water as the enabler, helping to create sustainable, liveable and healthy communities in the west through
waterway restoration and urban greening”.
Design elements
Our planning and design work was to provide a solution which delivered a more natural vegetated waterway
which incorporated incorporate a stormwater harvesting system to provide fit-for-purpose treated stormwater
for public open space irrigation demands at the proposed Sunshine Energy Park and other nearby reserves
including Lloyd Reserve.
A key design purpose for the detailed design is to make a cool zone for the adjoining residents irrigated through
the implementation of water harvesting and irrigation scheme onsite. The space along the creek and retarding
basin was designed as a purpose built vegetated area that keeps optimal soil moisture and canopy for cooling.
It was designed as a cool space for the community with a network of shaded paths and rest areas providing for
high quality passive recreation with canopy trees, walking tracks and seating. The rehabilitation of the concrete
channel sought to maintain or improve flood conveyance, improve instream and riparian ecology and create
linkages with surrounding open space including the waterway and wetlands. Our objective was to establish a
predominately vegetated, biologically diverse waterway.
Outcomes
Our work focused on the transformation of the channel and riparian values to provide community activity,
passive and active recreation and amenity through open space integration with the surrounding
developments.
Revegetation of indigenous species will reduce the urban landscape heat, provide ‘community cool zones’ for
residents during heatwaves, and habitat for fauna. Improved hydraulic design will increase safety through
reduced flow velocities and improve flood levels where possible. An integrated stormwater treatment and
water harvesting facility will provide an alternate water supply for public open space irrigation and further
improve amenity for the community. The open space environments will provide a significant increase in
urban amenity to the region, providing valuable open space recreation to the local community which has a
paucity of high value passive open spaces. We envisage a loop trail system of over 3km, that will provide
shaded walking experiences, and high value view sheds into the restored waterway and over the newly
created wetlands. Preliminary urban design objectives and schematic development plans for the adjacent
housing development will also be sought and considered in the context of open space interfaces with the new
housing development.
Our work designed a waterway and wetland environment that delivers all the hydraulic and wetland objectives
but also creates outstanding natural unobstructed open spaces that will add enormous physiological and
psychological health benefits to the local community. We placed a high emphasis on achieving this objective as
we realise this is a benefit that will provide and lasting improvement to the lives of the community who will
inherit the integrated waterway, and satisfaction and pride are sure fire way to ensure ownership and
protection of their asset.
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Design arrangement
The overall design arrangement is presented below.
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Reuse schematic
A conceptual overview of the water reuse and distribution model is provided below.
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