FAQs

Community infrastructure refers collectively to physical community facilities (such as libraries, community halls, kindergartens, etc) and to the services, programs and other activities delivered through those facilities by council or other organisations. 

When facilities co-locate in a building or precinct, it is known as a ‘community hub’.

Council is the steward of many community infrastructure buildings and facilities.  

To ensure our forward planning is consistent and evidence-based, Council is developing a Framework, a decision-making tool that will be used when assessing current and future community needs for services and facilities.

Council will follow the Framework when planning, designing or delivering new community infrastructure, upgrading existing facilities, or deciding on the future use of community infrastructure assets.

Some challenges we are currently facing that contribute to the need for the framework are: 

• Many of Council’s community facilities are aging and built originally for a different purpose to their current use. This may lead to issues around maintenance and whether they are fit for their current use (for example we might be using what used to be an old residence for a childcare centre).
• Many of our facilities are only used by one service and are missing opportunities to integrate with other uses and optimising use of the building.
• Council has a constrained budget available to spend on buildings and there are competing priorities on this budget across all our services.
• Kingston has a growing and changing population which means there will be increasing demand on Council owned community infrastructure.
• Across Kingston our population members have distinctive characteristics and therefore have unique needs; there is no one size fits all approach.

Council’s Open Space Strategy provides the strategic direction on matters related to public open space. Kington Play Your Way provides strategic direction on matters related to play spaces and outdoor courts. 

This means that the following are excluded from the scope of this project:

• Sports courts (indoor and outdoor)
• Open space furniture (BBQ’s, seats, picnic tables, bins)
• Play spaces and outdoor fitness equipment
• Public toilets
• Public open space and parklands