WHERE IS OUR SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY?

A brief submission on NSW Planning discussion paper on improving the NSW planning process.

Prepared by Bruce Reyburn
PO Box 257 Thirroul NSW 2515

The conceptual architecture of the NSW Department of Planning discussion paper, while focused on professional notions of improving planning efficiency, lacks a real spirit of community.

Indeed, in places, there are suggestions of an attitude which seeks to dismiss – as a nuisance – community involvement in planing matters.

This can probably be attributed to the fact that the push to reform the planning process in the present discussion paper does not originate in our communities, but from other sources.

The question then becomes “What reforms to the planning process do people-in-community really want to see?” This can only be found out by proper consultation with them, and this submission makes no claims to provide a substitute for their voice.

SOME GENERAL REMARKS

The discussion paper has inscribed within it the dated views of the previous century which operate with a falsely abstract view of people, communities and which seeks to prop up increasing obsolete (‘modern’) forms of organisation.

The paper also operates with an entirely ‘top-down’ view of reality, thereby automatically privileging the values of developers while, at the same time, discounting the importance of all those things in communities which real people hold dear.

Modern forms of organisation, those which typify the 20th century, sought to obtain ‘efficiencies’ based on paper-based means of communication. This produced a system conceived of as ‘centralised’ but which was, in reality, a nodal concentration of information and power in a specific locality.

The resulting ‘spin’ which is placed on everything by those in the nodes has decentred peoples lives, resulting in a largely apathetic and unengaged community where everyday people feel too far removed from decision-making to take any real interest.

As a consequence we fail to tap into the most important resource necessary for balanced community life and good governance – the common wealth of experience and talents which everyday people bring to commonsense decisions in relation to core community business.

The underlying system of attitudes which is evident in the discussion paper is one which is scornful of the ability of people-in-community to arrive at carefully balanced decisions.

The history of local government in New South Wales is one which, from the outset, ignored the highly developed local regulations which were already in place in indigenous life in 1788. All official decision-making was vested in the Governor.

The history of the development of local government shows a modest delegation of power from the colony and state levels, which the powerful vested interests, which developed in colonial times and during the 20th century, retaining control over the real levers of power.

Local government, to this day, is not recognised by the 1901 Australian Constitution.

With the rise of the power of capital, the notion of democracy based on one person one vote has run into an invisible counterforce. One assessment in the United States in the 1990s placed the power of capital and the power of citizens to influence decision-makers as running at about 50 – 50. That was a decade ago.

These contextual considerations are vitally important when discussing reforms to the planning process.

When real people-in-community are marginalised, and the political system at the state level has a party system which places a premium on the comparatively small donations of developers while turning a blind eye to the massive contribution of people-in-community by way of taxes, rates and volunteer effort, the result is poor planning decisions.

The rise of government and private partnerships, protected from public scrutiny with claims of ‘commercial in confidence’ privilege, exacerbate the risks of extremely bad decisions, such as has been seen when roads in Sydney – paid for and already owned by taxpayers – were closed by the government in order to force people to use privately operated toll roads.

FAILURE TO ENGAGE COMMUNITY AS STAKEHOLDERS IN REFORM

Added to this, while the discussion paper makes passing mention of the importance of community consultation the community consultation for the discussion paper has largely failed to engage members of our communities in the discussion.

From my experience in the Wollongong area, many people, who take a real interest in civic life at the community level, are largely unaware of the existence of the discussion paper.

Many of those who have heard about it have no knowledge of its substantive proposals for reform, nor of the need to make a submission by the deadline of Friday 8 February (having been on display largely over the busy Christmas and summer holiday period).

Nor do people realise that the discussion paper is intended not merely for discussion purposes but that the intent of government is to convert the outcomes from the discussion into legislation in early 2008.

The passive approach used towards community consultation (put the paper on a website, put a message in the paper that it is there) demonstrates a similar disregard for community involvement in the proposed reform legislation.

The danger for any conversation about planning is that it will take place amongst a very narrow group of professionals and make use of language and concepts which are extremely abstract and remote from the realities of everyday life. That is, the discussion will take place in ways which are doubly remote from the lives of everyday people.

There is also a real need to provide social, historical and contextual information about the planning process in order for people to be able to properly assess the prosed reforms.

This is especially critical in relation to examples provided to promote reforms. In the case of the United Kingdom there is a real need to provide contextual information which demonstrates the very different history of local government to the Australian situation, the role of traditional constraints on local government and Central government decision-making, and present moves towards devolution between Central and regional/local governments.

In cases such as the use of e-planning practices by Pittwater Council, there needs to be counterbalancing contextual information regarding the role of their existing and developing community engagement policy in dealing with know planning problems.

There is a real need for the government, now that it has received submissions from the professional side of planning, to make a complementary effort to engage with the wider community before proceeding to draft legislation.

MOVING TO A NEW PARADIGM

The old paradigm, that which has been in place during the previous (20th) century, relied on a top-down approach.

New paradigms are emerging (e.g the process of devolution in the United Kingdom) which seek to overcome the shortcomings of the top-down approach by formally and informally recognising and respecting community involvement in governance, and as being long-term stakeholders in planning outcomes.

Many Councils already have community engagement processes in place. Planning NSW could work in partnership with Councils to inform our communities of the proposed reforms and to seek feedback.

Now is the time to make real use of these practices to engage people-in-community in a genuine dialogue about reforms to the planning process.

RECOMMENDATION ONE

The Department of Planning should commence a second phase of the community consultation in connection with the proposed reforms by actively seeking to engage with the wider community and by making full use of best practice means of doing so. This must include providing social, historical and contextual information necessary for well-informed non-professional people to be able to make genuine and informed judgements about the proposed reforms. Full use should be made of Councils’ existing Community Engagement processes to facilitate this discussion, with the aim of those Councils preparing further submissions representing the range of views of their constituencies.

PRECINCT COMMITTEES

The present forms of organisation of the State government and local councils belong to a previous age, when communication was largely paper based. This resulted in a concept of ‘centralisation’ which saw a concentration of information and power in one place, and which decentred the lives of local people-in-community.

This false notion of ‘centralisation’, which produces all manner of bottlenecks and planning problems, is rapidly being rendered obsolete by a combination of increasing fuel costs and new forms of communication technology. The clever country is that which moves to ‘recentre’ life in our communities.

True centralisation requires a distribution of information and power into the lives of people-in-community. This is a necessary component for any sound planning process in the 21st century.

Of course, those who believe they benefit from the old arrangements prefer to block their ears to such messages. Good planning reforms, however, will concentrate on fashioning new ears in order for us all to be able to respond in a timely and orderly manner to the steadily emerging challenges of our times.

Wollongong City Council, for example, prepared a submission on the proposed reforms by its Council officers. There was no involvement, nor any attempt to involve through the W.C. C. Community Engagement Policy, the wider Wollongong City residents in the preparation of that narrowly conceived submission.

In 2005 Wollongong City Council unilaterally abolished the Neighbourhood Committees which could have severed as a conduit for providing information to and feedback from a very well informed part of our communities.

During the 12 or so years of the experiment with WC.C.C Neighbourhood Committees a very large body of experience relating to the shortcomings of existing planning practices was developed by a significant group of community minded people. We became familiar with many aspects of dealing with Development Applications from both sides of the ‘fence’. Some also gained a working knowledge of the planning process.

The community perspective is vitally important to getting the fine tuning of any reforms to the planning practice right.

Recent events at Sandon Point, where Ministerial approval for a major project by Stockland and the Anglican Retirement Villages has been overturned by the Land and Environment Court (and the long-running contested development of the previous stage of Sandon point development) clearly demonstrate the need for a more intelligent approach to community involvement in planning and approval processes.

The sound way to provide certainty and confidence for developers is to ensure that community concerns are able to be dealt with in a way which ensures that those concerns are treated seriously both by planning professionals, politicians and the Boards of private companies.

One of the sound ways of achieving this is for state and local government to appreciate the role which can be played by Precinct Committees as part of the committee system of local government.

Indeed, a key part of the required reforms to the planning practices is missing from the discussion of professional planners. That is the pressing and urgent need for the Local Government Act to be amended to provide for secure Precinct Committees which can act as a conduit between all levels of government, but especially State and Local, and our communities.

These Precinct Committees can also play a key role in moving towards Place Based Planning.

RECOMMENDATION TWO

The Local Government Act be amended to provide for Precinct Committees which will be:
1.1 secure from unilateral abolition by a simple majority of the local Council
1.2 properly resourced in order to be able to both inform and reflect the values of their constituency
1.3 operate in a democratic and accountable manner
1.4 Council-community conduits for all planning matters
1.5 Key parts of a place based planning process
1.6 See appended Community Reform Agenda for additional information.

COMMUNITY VETO

In the likely event that the views put forward here will be not result in a second round of consultation and our communities will not be engaged to say what reforms we require, it is necessary to touch on the matter of protecting the things we hold dear from the risks of State Ministers imposing major projects upon us without our genuine consent.

The matter of a community veto is mentioned (and dismissed) in passing in the discussion paper. In terms of correcting the imbalances and excesses of the previous centuries it is an idea whose time has come.

RECOMMENDAION THREE

Change the Local Government Act (and Planning Act) to require all major projects of state significance to be issued with a “statement of community consent” from the relevant Precinct Committee as a prior and necessary condition for the NSW Planning Minister to grant development consent (such statement of community consent not to be unreasonably withheld – with a test of ‘reason’ in contested cases being determined by a popular vote within the area of the Precinct Committee).

DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS – NEED TO HEAR FROM MUMS AND DADS

Community and neighbourly values need to be given far more prominence and protection in relation to the approval of development applications.

Planning is not merely a matter of the speed with which any development application can be processed. Planning must give proper weight to the equally important values of maintaining community values and promoting community building.

While the discussion paper invokes the image of ‘mums and dads’ seeking approval for homely changes, it completely ignores those same mums and dads who came rushing to the meetings of WCC Neighbourhood Committees when they learnt what horror was about to impact on them, with the consent of the relevant bodies, next door or what is going to happen to the local playing fields.

If the part of the image of ‘mums and dads’ can be expropriated in order to facilitate the passage of reforms (aimed entirely at protecting the rights of private property – especially those of people with real wealth) then we need to make sure that the rounded image (the full picture) of ‘mums and dads’ is provided.

‘Mums and Dads” are very much the backbone of our living communities and their views are not to be found in this discussion paper. With the failure of the community consultation process for these proposed reforms to engage with our Mums and Dads it is unlikely that their concerns will be reflected in the subsequent legislation.

The concerns of Mums and Dads are typically those which seek to protect far wider community values than the right of an individual to develop their property.

Even so, the protection of views, rights to sunshine, freedom from undue noise and modern forms of pollution (BBQs, chemical sprays) and a host of other matters (water runoff, trees) need to be included into the review of planning matters in order to lessen the number of disputes in our communities.

Protecting the character of our community has been a ground for objection to a development application, but I would be very much surprised to find that it has ever carried any weight in the Northern Suburbs of Wollongong. Distant planners, living in remote places, regularly make decisions which result in entirely inappropriate dwellings being constructed (in water courses, on flood plains) and with no relationship to their real surroundings.

The new housing on the first stages of development at Sandon Point stands as a lasting testament to the failure of fine words before the event to translate into actual good practice once approval has been granted.

Similarly, Mums and Dads want to ensure that there are community assets such as sports fields and open spaces in their communities. The Sandon Point experience is that approval is given for developers to take community land (in order to be able to have more lots for sale in their private venture) and to be able to subdivide in ways which leave no open space and room for kids to hit a cricket ball around.

Yet if the people who live in local communities cannot be the final authority on defining the character of their local area, who can? This aspect needs real discussion with Mums and Dads.

Empowering local communities to engage in referenda on development, which the discussion paper mentions as something to avoid in the process of responding to individual development applications, may be a very good idea – and could be part of a process which makes people-in-community the final authority in defining the character of their area.

State governments and local councillors need to realise that people-in-community – rather than being marginalised as ‘the enemy’ and an obstacle to good planning practices – are more than capable of making creative management decisions about the life of our community when a sound case is made to us.

RECOMMENDATION FOUR

A change is required in the State laws and systems of attitudes and internal culture of State and Council planning Departments to ensure that proper weight is attached to the right of people-in-community to determine and be the final authority on the character of their community (including a requirement, if deemed appropriate by people-in-community, that individual development applications respect existing views, sunshine hours and other matters).

NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE THINKING IN PLANNING

The planning practices of the previous century took place in a context which operated as though there were no social and environmental limits.

At the outset of the 21st century we are increasingly aware, through such things as the human contribution to global warming, that there are real limits which, if ignored as constraints on planning, will produce consequences which generate a wide range of unbudgeted costs.

On the social side, the relatively full-employment of the previous century allowed for planning which privileged the nuclear family as a basic unit of residential unit, along with the use an increasing use of individually driven vehicles as a means of transport from home to work.

Political leaders found it easy to promote a vision of the good life which also allowed developers to practice slash and burn residential developments which can be regarded as a form of mortgage farming on previously agricultural or horticultural land (and previously to that, the living countries of Australia’s First Peoples).

In place of ‘modern’ thinking we need to be able to cultivate a kind of yin-yang approach which insists that there is a healthy and dynamic balance between developed and undeveloped land in any one area.

What can be said is that rising interest rates, the price of houses and apartments and a move from an industrial society work-base will increasingly make the possibility of individual home ownership impossible for a large part of the population.

As well as ensure that there is a supply of low cost rental accommodation, there needs to be some means within the planning process to factor in some experimentation in more communal living arrangements.

At the moment, urban lands which may be useful for such experiments are consumed by the operation of a market driven biscuit cutter which, blind to the future needs of our society, can only see lot$/subdivision.

One recent plan for Wollongong – to 2025 or similar – did not engage the services of a futurist in order to see how what was being planned measured up against known potential changes over that time. Changes to weather patterns, for example, may render outmoded past statistical data on what counts as a one-in-hundred year flood.

At the time of writing, there has been very heavy rainfall in NSW with one whole recent suburb in Wollongong isolated as a result of flooding and poor planning.

RECOMMENDATION FIVE

The planning process needs to be reformed in order to factor in provisions for different kinds of futures to those which dominated the 20th century.

INDIGENOUS LAND NEEDS

The question arises as to whether or not the Department of Planning has effectively engaged with the various levels of Aboriginal Land Councils in NSW.

In addition to recognising indigenous peoples as cultural partners in land use matters (and native title holders) the land use needs of indigenous peoples in NSW continues to be a very important and pressing matter.

A simple test to determine if the present discussion paper has been received and processed by indigenous people in NSW would be to see if any indigenous person or organisation has made a submission by the present deadline of Friday 8 February.

If not, then it may be the case that the community consultation necessary for making legislation for reforming the planning laws could be viewed as being racially discriminatory.

A special effort may be required to consult with indigenous peoples and their organisations regarding the contents of the discussion paper.

RECOMMENDATION SIX

The discussion paper be referred to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner to ensure that indigenous people (and their rights):

1. have not been excluded from consideration in the proposed reforms
2. have not been prevented from making genuine and informed comment as a result of a failure to engage by the Department of Planning’s community consultation methodology.

TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE REPORTING

This is a necessary reform in order to ensure that planning and development is not corrupted by narrowly conceived notions of the responsibilities of corporations to be only those of ensuring a return to their shareholders. Their first obligation is to be good members of our communities and good neighbours seeking to work cooperatively with us.

RECOMMENDATION SEVEN

All corporate developers must have triple bottom line reporting if they are to be awarded State government and Council contracts; enter into partnerships with State government and Councils; or be awarded any kind of preferred tenderer or equivalent status by State governments, statutory authorities and Councils.

Thanks for reading so far.

My hope is that this submission will serve to stimulate a community conversation about the reform of planning laws so that we may all be better placed to deal with present and emerging challenges to our communities.

Bruce Reyburn
6 February 2008

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