Orange laneway design plans revealed, Orange City Council to vote Tuesday

A selection panel chose the purple layout by Daniel Templeman to recommend for the $200,000 project. About 100 comments from residents were submitted but did not appear to be factored into selection.

Councillors will make the final decision to approve or reject the CBD overhaul at their Tuesday night meeting.

Plans to overhaul the "rundown" section connecting Summer Street to the Central Square car park were revealed in June, 2023.

Nearly 40 artists from across Australia submitted expressions of interest to take on the project. The recommendation was chosen by representatives for art groups and senior council employees.

Two designs were featured to the Your Say platform where residents could voice their opinion. Those - by Joel Adler and Daniel Templeman - are pictured below.

The question on the survey site read 'what do you think about the laneway upgrade' which was followed by a text box field which allowed them to leave a comment, with no word count restriction.

Council said 263 people visited the survey and 98 of those left responses.

"Of those 98 responses, 70 people were in full support, 14 people said they were supportive but didn't like either of the designs, ten people were against the project, 4 people didn't leave a comment," the council document added.

"When the survey was promoted on council's social media, it was well received. Combined the posts reached over 3500 people (approximately) and received over 80 'likes' showing support. Eight comments were left on the posts in total, showing mixed reviews."

Although there were only eight visible comments left on the posts which spanned across sites such as Facebook and Instagram, there were nearly 20 comments which weren't able to be viewed for unknown reasons.

Council documents released on August 15 ahead of Tuesday night's meeting have now detailed which of the two designs would likely be chosen as the final selection.

"It is recommended that council resolves to move forward with the project, in line with the recommendation from the public art panel for Daniel Templeman's design to be installed," the council document read.

If the council approves the project and artist at Tuesday night's meeting, it is anticipated that offsite manufacturing would take place over the following six months. Installation would then take place over a ten day span in late March 2024.

It was estimated the project would cost $200,000 in total, with the NSW Government and Orange Council splitting the bill evenly.

The building owner, Charter Hall has committed to funding the cleaning, repairs and upgrade to the site in preparation for the artwork installation.

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