Town planning for the Minecraft generation

Well, now’s your chance.

York community group YoCo (that stands for York Central Co-Owned) has teamed up with top national think tank Demos to design an online toolkit which will allow York people to ‘re-design’ the plans for York Central, the huge 110-acre site behind York railway station.

In what is being described as a UK first for a project on this scale, from October 1 you’ll be able to access a portal on the YoCo website (www.yoco.uk), download a copy of the official York Central masterplan - and then redesign it to your heart’s content. You’ll be able to add new paths or public parks, sketch suggested designs for homes and buildings, and rearrange the way shops and offices are laid out.

An 'illustrative map' of the York Central masterplan

It promises to be great fun - planning design for the Minecraft generation. But it will be much more than that. All the redesigned plans, as well as the original masterplan, will be listed on the site, and ranked in order of popularity as people comment on and like or dislike them.

After two months, the most popular ‘community plan’ will then be presented to the York Central Partnership, which is managing development of the site on behalf of Homes England, Network Rail, the city council and the NRM, for consideration.

They haven’t, by any means, promised that they will adopt all or even part of the redesigned plan. But they have said they will look at it.

“We welcome the engaged approach of YoCo and Demos,” said Ian Gray, the York Central project director.

City of York Council is also interested in what the YoCo/ Demos approach throws up. “We are keen to see how YoCo’s engagement work can help to build on the outline planning permission to deliver the housing, better paid jobs and community spaces that residents need,” said Cllr Denise Craghill, executive member for housing and safer communities

“For such a major project as York Central, widespread public engagement using a variety of different approaches will help us to ensure the best outcomes for residents. This work should complement our own engagement around plans for setting the highest design and environmental standards on the site.”

But how exactly will the YocCo/ Demos approach work? It won’t be a million miles away from computer game ‘world-building’, admits Demos’ Jon Nash. He actually uses the word ‘gamification’ when describing the approach.

The world of Minecraft. Picture; Pixabay. The new YoCo/ Demos approach to planning for York Central has similarities to computer game world-building

From October 1, you be able to sign up to take part by clicking a button on the YoCo website.You’ll then be sent an email with a link. Simply click on the link, and you’re in.

After you have downloaded a copy of the existing York Central masterplan, you’ll then be able to start work on modifying or re-designing it.

There will be some constraints on what you can do, Jon admitted. But you’ll have a fairly free rein.

“If you want to add more public open space, or cycle space, or to sketch how you imagine the development should look, you’ll be able to do that,” he said. “We don’t want to put limits on people’s creativity.”

The portal will remain open for two months. Every time someone creates a revised plan, it will be saved on the site. People can then download any of these revised plans - and use them to create their own, further revised version. All the redesigned plans, as well as the original masterplan, will then be continually ranked in order of popularity as people comment on and like or dislike them.

So to start with, there will just be the official masterplan, with a 100 per cent rating, because there are no others. But as the project develops and more redesigned plans are submitted, things will start to change. Plans will rise up and down the list as people comment on them or like them.

An artist's impression of how York Central might look

It’s a method that shares something with crowdfunding, as well as world-building, Jon admits.

At the end of the two months, it is the most popular scheme that will be formally put forward to the York Central Partnership.

The whole idea is to find new ways of engaging with people on the whole York Central project, Jon said.

The demographic of people who engage with typical council planning consultations tends to be older.

He hopes that older people will engage with this method, too. But he also hopes it will appeal to younger generations. After all, he points out, it is today’s younger generation that will have to live with York Central as they grow up.

One key thing about the process is that it will encourage people to consider the masterplan for the whole of the York Central site, rather than just looking at one little bit of it, he said.

He also hopes it will encourage people to work on the plans together in groups, discussing and arguing about what they want to include or change on their version. And he hopes that it will lead to some ‘innovative’ ideas. “We will be starting with the masterplan, then inviting the people of York to come up with something better,” he said.

As far as he is aware, nothing like this has been done on this scale in the UK before. “We are really excited to be piloting it in York,” he said.

The official outline masterplan for the huge, 110-acre site behind York railway station commonly known as York Central was approved by city planners in March 2019. It envisages up to 2,500 new homes, 110,000 square metres of commercial and office space, and new streets, shops and public areas.

Often described as the ‘largest brownfield site in York’, the development has the potential to generate jobs, create new homes and workplaces, and change the face of York for generations to come.

Helen Graham (left) and Phil Bixby, who led the original My York Central consultation

The masterplan was developed following a pioneering ‘My York Central’ consultation in 2018 which involved weeks of site walks, workshops, discussions and debates. But it remains just an outline, with all the detail yet to be filled in.

This will be a chance for the people of York to help fill in some of that detail. But it is more, too.

YoCo member Phil Bixby, the York architect who helped lead the My York Central consultation, said that the masterplan which had been developed did not take on board all the ideas that came out of that earlier consultation.

Take ‘zoning’, for example, in which a development is organised into separate zones for housing, business and retail. On of the things that came out of the My York Central consultation was that it might be good to drop the idea of zoning, and go for mixed-use neighbourhoods instead, where homes, shops and workplaces are all side-by-side (or on top of each-other).

That didn’t happen - and you still find zoning in the masterplan. The new consultation might be a chance to challenge that.

There are real benefits to mixed-use neighbourhoods, Phil stressed. There’s a greatly reduced need for transport, for a start. “People can walk to the shops or the café”. You also get better use of land. And you have a community that is ‘active at all times’, rather than a business area, for example, that is deserted in the evening.

Th new YoCo/ Demos project will be a real chance for the people of York to try out some new ideas, Phil said. “We’re looking to see what appetite there is to take back the masterplan and do more innovative stuff,” he said.

You’ll be able to access the YoCo/ Demos planning portal from October 1 by visiting www.yoco.uk