Dandenong Living Neighbourhood: Transitioning to Community-Led Placemaking

The Context

In the heart of the Dandenong town centre, the City of Greater Dandenong identified a critical operational challenge. Two key precincts the Southern Gateway (Settlers Square and train station surrounds) and the Northern Bookend (Palm Plaza) were struggling with poor amenity, safety perceptions, and a lack of social cohesion.
While the Council had allocated a 3-year budget for activation, they recognised that a traditional “service delivery” model where the Council creates and manages all outcomes was resource-intensive and often failed to build long-term social capital or place change. The strategic imperative was to shift the responsibility for placemaking from the Council to the community. The goal was to empower local residents and traders to become the “doers,” transforming the Council’s role from sole provider to strategic guide and enabler.

The Collaboration

POMO was engaged as the lead consultant in partnership with community engagement partners Fourfold Studio to design a capacity-building framework. We worked closely with the City of Greater Dandenong’s placemaking team to engineer a process that would bridge the gap between municipal governance and grassroots action, ensuring the transfer of agency was supported, structured, and sustainable.

Our methodology was designed to unlock community capacity. We moved beyond standard consultation techniques to create a “bottom-up” delivery system where locals were equipped to take the lead.

• Building Placemaking Literacy: A major barrier to community action is a lack of understanding regarding what is possible. We ran educational sessions to improve “placemaking literacy,” shifting the conversation away from complex, capital-heavy infrastructure toward agile, community-run activations. We taught stakeholders how to navigate Council requirements to deliver their own low-cost, high-impact interventions.
• The “Placemaking Pledge” Mechanism: To formalise the transfer of responsibility, we engineered the “Placemaking Pledge” into the workshop structure. This was a critical implementation tool that required participants to commit to specific roles whether organising a cultural event, managing a pop-up space, or monitoring a laneway. This converted the engagement process from a passive feedback loop into an active recruitment drive for local leaders.
• Creating “Community Action” Briefs: Instead of producing traditional master plans, we developed a series of Community Project Briefs. These were written as instructional guides for the community, outlining the steps and resources required to deliver prioritised initiatives in zones such as Little India and Palm Plaza. This gave the community a clear roadmap to execute their own vision with Council support, fostering a culture of “community-led placemaking”.
• Digital Youth Integration: Recognising that young people are key users of public space, we utilised digital walkthroughs during youth workshops. This step was carried out by the internal Placemaking team. This allowed younger demographics to identify safety “hotspots” and propose their own activation solutions, ensuring the future custodians of the space were directly involved in its curation.

The Impact

The Dandenong Living Neighbourhood project has successfully established a framework for a new operating model for placemaking and place activation within the Council.

• Sustainable Governance Model: By the conclusion of the process, we had identified a network of local “champions” who pledged to lead specific initiatives. This effectively reduced the burden on Council resources, allowing the local government to focus on removing red tape and providing strategic support rather than managing every operational detail.
• Empowered Community Agency: The project proved that the community is willing to take ownership of their public spaces when given the right tools and permission. The outcome is a “menu” of community-led activations that are authentic to the local culture and far more sustainable than top-down interventions.
• Safety Through Ownership: By empowering locals to curate and activate spaces like Palm Plaza, the project addresses safety concerns through “eyes on the street” and active ownership, demonstrating that a vibrant, community-led presence is the most effective form of urban security.

Partner with POMO for Capacity Building

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