Parklets need better council backing through more creative policies

Parklets need better council backing through more creative policies

As Yarra City Council updates its parklet policy, an RMIT expert is calling for councils to expand and innovate their parklet policies and programs to transform streets and enliven local communities.

Professor Quentin Stevens, Landscape Architecture

"Parklets, which were first introduced just 20 years ago as unauthorised, temporary interventions on city streets, have rapidly become a vital tool for local communities to enliven and transform streets to increase greenery, commerce, social interaction and play. 

"Our research shows that hospitality parklets, and even parklets available for free community use, tend to cluster very tightly within hospitality precincts that are already thriving.   

"Parklets rarely spread to neighbourhoods and streets that lack public realm investment and street life: the places that perhaps need them most.  

"Parklets remain both loved and hated by residents, businesses and car drivers. Yarra City Council is, like many councils, currently updating their parklet policies and fees to reflect conflicting and changing public attitudes about parklets’ impacts on the activity, appearance and traffic of city streets.  

"Yarra’s new draft policy safeguards the recognised benefits of the existing parklet regime. But it could do much more to promote further innovation in street design and management, like parklets originally did in 2020-21, when greater Melbourne erected over 600 of them. 

"Parklets are innovative, dynamic public spaces, and they could be more numerous and more varied in their benefits if local governments continue to facilitate innovation in this area and not just regulate."

Professor Quentin Stevens, from the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University, has 30 years of research experience in urban design, focused on the design, use and management of public spaces. 

Professor Stevens will launch his new book How Good Are Parklets? at Readings’ bookshop branch located inside the State Library Victoria, 285-321 Russell Street, Melbourne, at 6:30pm on Thursday 19 February. 

12 February 2026

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12 February 2026

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