What Future for Community Voices in Planning and Development

Reader M highlighted a news article in the Age today - Council stripped of permit power : Planning Minister Madden is considering a model introduced in SA in which special panels dominated by unelected planning and design experts to determine major planning applications

Councils urged to consider cuts to planning powers
Royce Millar July 19, 2007
A leading local government figure has urged Victorian councils not to immediately reject a proposal to strip local councils of some of their planning powers.
Planning Minister Justin Madden is considering a model, introduced by the South Australian Government, under which panels dominated by unelected planning and design experts determine major planning applications.
Development groups have enthusiastically backed the idea, but some councils are adamantly opposed.
However, some senior local government figures have welcomed debate on the issue, and have urged councils not to reject the proposal outright.
Victorian Local Governance Association president Beth Davidson said councils should be prepared to consider better methods of decision-making "rather than continuing on just because that's what you've always done".
But she cautioned the Government against imposing a new system, noting the Government's vow to work with councils. "Partners collaborate, they don't impose," she said.
Cr Davidson's council, the Surf Coast Shire, has used a similar system for many years, under which local experts decide more contentious planning proposals. Planning staff decide the rest. It is the only council in Victoria that uses such a system, and it worked "extremely well", she said.
But Opposition planning spokesman Mathew Guy said Labor's consideration of the SA model represented "the beginning of the end" for community input into urban planning.
"The adoption of this planning system will give a clear run to build higher, and more densely, across existing urban areas and will have scant regard for existing urban character across Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria," he said.
It is believed the Liberal Party was considering introducing a similar system before it lost power at the 1999 state election.
Port Phillip Mayor Janet Bolitho said the Government should not be considering such a significant change before fulfilling its own promises to cut red tape.
The Government "should be putting its energies into fully implementing its own policies instead of leaping on another quick fix", she said.
"Planning can be a fraught business, but it's essential that local democracy not be undermined simply to appease sections of the property industry," Cr Bolitho said.
Brian Welch, executive director of the Master Builders Association of Victoria, said that reform of the planning system along the lines of the SA model should be the Government's priority in any bid to improve housing affordability.
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This was followed by the Liberal Opposition Planning Spokesman with more dire warnings

FAREWELL COMMUNITY PLANNING INPUT – HELLO HIGH RISE ACROSS THE SUBURBS

News that the Bracks Government is considering adopting a centralised model of planning approvals is the beginning of the end for community input into urban planning. Adoption of Labor’s plan would see unelected officials determining what can and can’t be built across Victoria. “The removal of planning powers from communities is what the Bracks Government has always wanted,” Shadow Minister for Planning Matthew Guy said today.
“Despite assurances to the contrary by the Premier late last year, this Government has always seen local councils and local input as the enemy in planning decisions.”
Mr Guy said that adoption of the proposed model would clear the way for high-rise residential towers across the suburbs.
“The Bracks Government has had huge problems forcing the implementation of its flawed Melbourne 2030 planning scheme which advocates high density, high-rise apartments across the suburbs.”
“The adoption of this planning system will give a clear run to build higher, and more densely, across existing urban areas and will have scant regard for existing urban character across Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria.”
“For people who have resisted high-rise or high density developments in their suburbs, they will have no say when this planning scheme is implemented.”
For rural and regional Victoria the news is worse. Not only will communities lose their chance to have a say on planning decisions, but the decisions on what will or won’t be built in towns across Victoria will be made by an unelected clique from Melbourne.
“In 1999 Steve Bracks was elected to government and claimed on election night that he’d ‘bring democracy back to Victoria’ – clearly his Government’s word means nothing as local democracy and local planning input are set to be a victim of their lies."


What’s the word from the curvy streets of Notting Hill?