Here we go again … another round of ACT planning and land restructuring, following the same pattern and mistakes as all the previous ones. These are broadly threefold:
DOT To rip off the ordinary people of Canberra so a few people can profit handsomely.
DOT To assume that higher-densities automatically provides for efficiency and less environmental harm.
DOT To assume that construction is a Good Thing that will always bring jobs and wealth to the city.
Both the Liberal and Labor Party have done it. It is done by keeping as much power over land administration and planning in the hands of government departments and minimising independent professional planning through a statutory authority answerable to the Assembly, as the self-government legislation requires.
The federal ACT (Planning and Land Management) Act requires the Assembly “”to make laws for the establishment of a territory planning authority” which shall have the functions of “”preparing and administering a plan”.
Instead of having a proper planning authority like federal Labor set up for the national elements of the city, the first Assembly got round this requirement by appointing just one person as the planning authority with virtually no power or staff. Planning and land administration were run by a department which had overriding instructions that development was to have an easy run, with easy grants of changes to land use to promote development. The role of professional planners was minimised.
(Incidentally, the territory’s current economic mess indicates that this policy has done little to built up a sustainable private sector as a buffer to federal public-sector cuts.)
The upshot has been widespread dissatisfaction. This was met by two inquiries … one by Robert Lansdown and the other by Paul Stein.
Both urged changes that would shift the balance from easy development in favour of controls that would ensure more accounting for existing residential amenity and a greater return to the public purse for land assets.
Both have been undermined by government. Stein’s fundamental recommendation of an independent authority to plan and administer leases … in accord with the spirit of the self-government legislation … has been ignored by the present minister, Gary Humphries.
Humphries wants put land and planning into the department of urban services. This will downgrade professional planning.
Moreover, as pointed out by Jacqui Rees of the Save Our City Coalition, in this arrangement there is no protection against a politician selling land at below market price to favour mates or to boost revenue for next year’s Budget. The city should be planned first with the amenity of existing residents and future needs in mind, and then the land sold. We should not have the land sold for revenue with planning ignored.
The role of chief planner and the ACT Planning Authority (such as it was) seems to be subsumed in the new structure. The “”chief planner” is also to be executive director of the planning and land management group (one person, two titles) and he or she is to report to the head of the Department of Urban Services. That is probably contrary to federal law and would certain require changes to ACT land and planning statutes which require a separate office of chief planner who reports direct to the Minister.
A change to that law will have to be approved by the Assembly. However, Labor’s planning spokesperson, Roberta McRae, has agreed to go along with this.
That position is contrary to the spirit of a motion at the recent Labor conference which recognised the “”value and comprehensiveness” of the Stein Report. But the motion had a let-out saying the party supported “”most” of Stein’s recommendations … though one ought to presume that that included the key one of a separate planning authority. McRae moved the motion and federal MP and ACT president John Langmore seconded it. Langmore, who has long supported a separate, strong ACT planning authority has had the wool pulled over his eyes.
You would think Labor would have paid more attention to things like the residential amenity of the people they hope to be grass-roots supporters and to things like protecting public assets.
There are other things wrong with the Humphries plan. There is no separate land account (so the public can see where the public land asset goes) and the present model spreads many functions through several departments and clouds and undermines the planning function.
It perpetuates many of the disquieting things of the past that Stein and Lansdown addressed.
Incidentally, when a significant part of Lansdown on dual occupancy was implemented, residential protests stopped. Good planning, in the long run, is good grass-roots politics.
The new model has a statutory decision maker and appeal system in the Attorney-General’s Department. It will inevitably lead to legalism and brawls (ital) after (end itl) bad land-use decisions have been made, rather than getting it right first up. But that is less likely without a strong, independent and professional planning function.
The trouble is, most of this structural discussion is too esoteric for most residents who only get stirred when the bulldozers arrive and it is too late, or who never see the quiet loss of revenue from land transactions.