Planning and land use is difficult, but there is no need to degenerate to vox pop, as seems to be proposed by Urban Services Minister Brendan Smyth.
The Department has engaged a consultant to ask individual residents in 11 sections in the inner north what their long-range plans are. The theory is that a plan can emerge that will permit or prohibit development according to the answers received. Labor’s planning spokesman Simon Corbell welcomed the idea saying it would help bring certainty to residents.
The scheme’s approach is flawed. There is no subsitute for expert planning. Often people do not know what they want. Or they change their minds quite quickly as events unfold.
The 11 sections are in Braddon, Turner, O’Connor and Lyneham where, according to the department, there are “”fairly solid expressions of interest from people wanting to redevelop”.
That is not a good basis for town planning. The expressions of interest might mean no more than a desire to make a lot of money. (Incidentally, it would be upon a misguided foundation that developers are willing to pay large amounts more than the market price so they can redevelop when in fact developers, quite reasonably, minimise costs and pay only enough to secure a property.) The function of planning is not to bow to every salivating whim of residents and developers wanting to make a windfall. Rather it is to balance a range of competing interests and needs. Transport, sewerage, water, electricity, schools shops and other infrastructure are considerations. So is the need to maintain residential amenity. The cost of redevelopment has to be balanced against the cost of greenfields development, or development on space within the existing build-up area.
Of greater importance is the need to ensure that redevelopment is of a high design standard.
Of course, this would be much better done if the ACT had set up a strong planning regime under a planning authority from the outset of self-government – one that could resist the instant pressures of developers who contribute to party coffers and residents who can wage attention-grabbing campaigns that unnerve politicians.
The history of department-run planning in the ACT has been an attempt to please all while pleasing none. There was a pretence at an independent planning authority in the early 1990s, but it consisted of just one person.
Redevelopment is difficult because of competiting pressures. Developers much prefer to deal with as large an area of land in one hit as possible. It is cheaper per unit to contruct 100 units than three. Some residents like to sell up and move out. On the other hand, the best use of public resources would be for selective redevelopment that permits a scattering of renewal while maintaining much of the character of the area. That way the dilapidated housing goes, population gets renewed, there is an opportunity for older people to stay in the area, and residential amenity is maintained by allowing only a few well-designed dual occupancies and medium density developments in any given area.
The better way would be to set percentages within suburbs and on each section for redevelopment, than to go for wholesale demolition of sections within suburbs. And then do more than just set building standards. Developers prefer the rigid footprint approach (if you stay in the footprint you can do what you like), but it is often unsatisfactory for adjacent residents. Each application for development has to approached separately. A building within the footprint might be intrustive and light-blocking at one site, but not at another. The trouble with this approach is that it is costly and requires a great deal of discretion and expertise at the planning stage. But in the long term it might be less costly than dealing with misallocated resources and destroyed residential amenity.
It seems the ACT Government is determined to try every approach to land use but the best – a strong planning regime with the expertise to exercise discretion effectively.