Visual Impact Assessments

Visual impact assessments are usually components of environmental impact statements or reviews of environmental factors which assess a range of potential impacts posed by certain developments. They determine the likely visual consequences of a development within a given visual catchment and recommend strategies to minimise negative impacts.

Project Examples

Wingecarribee Residential Land Capability Study

Assessment of two proposed residential subdivisions (‘Renwick’ and ‘Wensley Dale’) in terms of land capacity to visually absorb development. Assessment of regional and local visual character and local site visibility; identification of significant site landscape features that should be preserved; and determination of visual opportunities and constraints to development and any potential for negative visual impact on landscape values.

Mount Thorley Coal Mine – Bulga NSW – (EIS)

Visual impact assessment of proposed extension to mining operations. Identification of visual catchment and key visual receptors (village, rural residences, main roadways); assessment of likely visual impacts; and recommendation for final form of mounds and vegetation strategy to lessen impacts.

Oberon Timber Facilities – Oberon NSW – (EIS)

Review of EIS’s visual assessment of proposed expansion of timber facilities. Advice on suitable colour selection for 54 m high dryer towers to minimise visual impact in broader landscape.

Regentville Substation – Mulgoa Valley NSW – (EIS)

Site selection, visual impact assessment and landscape documentation of proposed substation in a rural valley.

Sewerage Treatment Works – Murwillumbah NSW – (REF)

Landscape character study and visual impact assessment of proposed extension to treatment works; and landscape concept plan to minimise visual impacts on surrounding residential properties.

(All projects undertaken with M A Schell & Associates, Sydney NSW from 1994 – 1996)

Princes Highway: Mogo – Moruya (Stage 3) – (EIS)

Visual Roadscape Study for the Roads and Traffic Authority. Assessment of landscape character and visual catchment of the road corridor which traverses a state-listed wetland (Waldrons Swamp); summary of proposed roadworks, outline of a preferred roadscape concept, assessment of likely visual impacts of both, and development of management guidelines to assist concept implementation.

(Project undertaken with Earthscope Consultants, Sydney NSW in 2000)