Rebuild Cobargo project recognised at the Planning Institute of Australia Awards 2023

Our Rebuild Cobargo project won the Award for Community Wellbeing & Diversity at the Planning Institute of Australia Awards last Thursday night.

We were delighted to accept this award from Paul Scully with our collaborators, SJB and the Cobargo Community Development Corporation (CCDC). It's great to see to a community-led project getting recognised as an exemplar of good planning process.

The jury cited:

"The Rebuild Cobargo project engaged with the community to design a new town centre, such that it caters to the needs of a contemporary community with a nod to the past and an eye on the future.

Awarding the Rebuild Cobargo project is recognition of the social and cultural inclusiveness of the project’s design and delivery during a challenging time for the community. Regular and often engagement with the local community and business owners informed key design elements of the project.

The design champions active uses aligned to community resilience and aspirations for the future such as a training café, village square, co-working space, and open air market area for local produce. At a time when more extreme weather events, such as bushfires and floods, are becoming more frequent, the Rebuild Cobargo project provides a model to build back better in a way that prioritises increasing community resilience and future needs. It shows the important role of inclusive, community-led planning in a post disaster context."