It was a small matter about staff, but the response was telling.The Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, was asked at his press conference yesterday whether he would increase staff at the ACT Planning Authority, as recommended by the Landsdown inquiry.
“”I wouldn’t dare pre-empt what the Government might say,” he replied.
Hang on a moment, this was the Minister who momemts before had issued a written response to the Landsdown report laced with the use of the first person singluar.
“”I have accepted the vast majority of the review’s recommendantions,” his statement said. “”However, I have added a number of other elements . . . .” etc.
But he wouldn’t dare make a decision about a few extra staffers without the full Government’s say so.
There is a reason for this. The other Ministers are worried about Wood making any more planning decisions. And the decisions he announced yesterday were mostly made by the other Ministers.
You see, Wood announced the Landsdown inquiry in the first place without letting the full Government know. The result was that until yesterday planning has continued to fester while the election neared. Moreover there was no guarantee what Landsdown would do because Wood had made the mistake of announcing an inquiry without knowing who the inquirer was or what he or she might find.
Because of that and a string of other bad press, the other Ministers have said: “No more. Let us electorally defuse planning.”
Yesterday’s statement went a long way towards that.
It was an admission, in deed if not word, that for the past two years planning has gone badly wrong. The linchpin of the former policy was removed yesterday. The Government abandoned the 50-50 greenfields-to-renewal ratio, saying what the community groups have been saying all along: 50-50 was arbitrary and no basis for sound planning.
The Government also abandoned the old multi-occupancy rules, under which you could build whatever number of dwellings you could fit in the building footprint (the area left after nominated set-backs). It its place will be local area planning _ different rules for different places depending on what people in the area want.
The arguments of the community groups, often branded as selfish NIMBYs, were again shown to have merit.
When you combine that with the collapse of the Duffy-Holder and Tuggeranong Homestead in-fill projects (both for sound reasons), you have to ask what is left of Bill Wood’s planning legacy.
Wood said yesterday that he had consistently listened to the community and implemented what it wanted, but invariably it has only been after drawn-out brawls which might have been unnecessary if the thing had been got right in the first place.
That said, planning is the most difficult job in Canberra. Wood was right yesterday when he said: “”We have a demanding community in Canberra. The more so since self-government. And it is especially so in planning. It will remain a hot issue forever.”
The Government went a long way yesterday to repair or forestall the electoral damage on planning. For residents on the ground the key government decisions made yesterday were: no multi-occupancies on one block; no two-storey dual occupancies (unless the neighbour is already two-storeys); no dual occupancy unless the block is more than 800 metres; no dual occupancy in new areas for five years; local area planning. These address the immediate electoral hotspots: Red Hill, Yarralumla and Banks.
However, one of the lesser Landsdown recommendations, accepted by the Government, is likely to have a far greater impact on the long-term political and bureaucratic culture of planning in Canberra.
Landsdown recommended that ACT Housing Trust properties be subject to planning rules. And thus the Minister for Housing (at present the Deputy Chief Minister, David Lamont) is to get a say.
Indeed, informed bureaucratic sources suggest Lamont has already had a big say, especially in yesterday’s announcement. And he has certainly prepared himself in the past few months.
He set up ACT Housing as an overarching body to deal with both public and private housing issues _ not just the stock of government houses which remains the province of the commissioner.
ACT Housing is headed by Peter Guild, who used to be high up in the Department of Environment, Land and Planning, so it is equipped to deal with planning issues.
Lamont also stopped all sales and redevelopment of Housing Trust dwellings two months ago, pending the Landsdown report. Now he has a stock of housing that has gone beyond its economic life ripe for renewal. That renewal will no longer be done in isolation, but as part of the overall planning of the city.
Notice also that one of the first places to get a local-area plan under under yesterday’s announcement will be Ainslie which has one of the highest percentages of Housing Trust dwellings in Canberra.
The trust owns about 12.5 per cent of Canberra’s 100,000 dwellings. But it is neighbour to perhaps another five to 10 per cent, which is important because subjecting the Housing Trust to planning law is a two-way street.
It will not only have submit plans for its renewal projects to the planners and neighbours, but it can also act as a neighbour itself when a private owner seeks redevelopment permission.
Expect the trust to take a more active role in this. Expect ACT Housing to take an interest in local-area planning, hopefully looking at housing results not just planning processes. Expect to see, also, the Housing and Planning Ministries come under the same Minister after the election (no guessing who).
The extra housing input and local-area planning, may help overcome the consultation mishap that has dogged Bill Wood’s life _ no-one takes much notice of abstract government policy until the bull-dozers arrive. Only when something happens right in the same street do people care _ an advantage of local-area planning.
Now there is another perverse reason why local-area planning might be successful. People will recall previous planning horrors and think: we better get in early this time.