How Wellington City Council used a digital twin to transform housing development planning
At a glance
Wellington City Council (WCC) was seeking to implement a sophisticated, streamlined approach to better understand its housing development planning.
The challenge
WCC has been a major influence in New Zealand’s local government for many years, pioneering the adoption and evolution of smart cities and digital twins. Recently, WCC’s City Development Team sought deeper insight into the capabilities of housing development planning.
This understanding involved reviewing population density scenarios, site yield, and planning for vacant or unoccupied spaces in and around Wellington city centre.
Their current solution involved a complex manual process supported by 2D plans that did not provide high end 3D visualisations or context of the surrounding or neighbouring environmental impacts.
WCC was seeking specialised tools that could complement this process and support more efficient decision-making with deeper insights.
Our response
Through GHD Digital’s existing knowledge that WCC uses Esri technology as their central software solution for spatial analysis, mapping and visualisation of geographic data, we were able to draw on decades of combined experience. Leveraging the power of spatial software meant we were able to help WCC get the most out of their software investment, and access to a team of responsive and talented GIS professional analysts to support their organisation. WCC, with the guidance of our location intelligence professionals, embarked on the implementation of ArcGIS Urban, an Urban Planning Digital Twin toolset from Esri.
ArcGIS Urban was the recommended solution because it facilitates collaborative 3D scenario planning and impact assessment, driving digital transformation in city and regional planning. Access to 3D scenario planning meant WCC would have an untapped level of understanding in their population density planning process that had not been used before.
This implementation and new technology adoption involved data preparation, tuning and publishing; ArcGIS Urban set up and configuration; sample scenario developments and knowledge transfer to the WCC team.
The impact
Working together, we provided guidance, support and program management at a scale that fits WCC now and adapts to their future growth.
Leveraging ArcGIS Urban, we explored population density scenarios for underutilised sites within central Wellington. By better understanding if it was feasible to develop a site and what yield WCC would get from it, we helped them realise the different density scenarios and their impact. Questions like what expansion plans might impact water requirements, energy use, Co2 emissions, and the impact of density on the broader area, such as transport and green space, was now more accessible to analyse.
WCC is equipped with a comprehensive toolset to aid its city development planning. This expansion will complement the existing town planning lifecycle by bringing traditional 2D plans to life in 3D, improving stakeholder communication through enhanced 3D visualisations, while providing a simplified understanding of complex planning rules.