Canberrans are in the second week of an eight-week consultation period on planning.
Most of us have lost count of how many community consultations we have had on planning since self-government in 1989.
The latest review is of the whole planning show from top to bottom and side to side.
It is a tacit admission that the Stanhope Government has flunked Planning I.
Two months ago Planning Minister Simon Corbell said, “We currently have a planning system that is resource intensive, uncertain and unable to respond quickly to changing community needs and expectations. The system gives rise to inconsistencies in decision-making. . . .”
Corbell as Minister has allowed this resource-intensive, unresponsive system to continue for three and a half years.
Now he is doing something about it. But the directions paper for the latest review is ominous.
Governments (of both sides) do not seem to get it. The vast bulk of Canberrans are not much interested in planning until the bulldozers arrive next door – and then they scream why wasn’t I consulted?
People expect government to set and enforce planning and building standards that will give them a good city to live in. They want to get on with whatever else they do. They are only really interested when it directly affects them – when something happens next door.
On the other hand, people who develop and build for a living are intensely interested all the time. No doubt they have been constantly chewing Corbell’s ear on the need to cut the red tape – that is allow them to build what they like wherever they want. The danger is this review will lower standards not improve them.
Builders and developers are in it for profit. Most will therefore build to the lowest standard they can get away with. They do not care if the result is energy- and water-guzzling. They do not care what impact it has on existing residents as long as they can flog it off at a profit.
Most consumers are unaware of the long-term benefits of good design, so do not ask about it. They buy what is on offer and developers and builders can plead: this is what people and the market want. And they will pressure government to have a planning system that reduces the costs for the construction phase and ignore the long-term costs over the rest of the building’s life.
It will be silly to conclude that an eight-week consultation means that most Canberrans will agree with the result.
Let’s not be beguiled by this cute idea that “Mums and Dads” building projects will not have to have development applications, as the directions paper suggests – particularly on greenfields sites.
Haven’t we learned anything from the mistakes of Gungahlin when land development was handed to the private sector with little requirement for public space, reasonable-size roads and space for trees and gardens on private land.
Small wonder the developers carved it up into postage stamps and built out to the boundaries, abandoning streetscapes and gardens. It was the rational thing for them to do to maximise profit. The legacy is not their business. If government does not insist on public space, why waste money on it?
When we abandoned planning scrutiny of greenfields land development the result was horrible. Now we are to abandon planning scrutiny of much of the house building in greenfields sites.
Private certifiers (employed by builders) will certify that a house fits design and siting criteria. Ho ho. Crib a bit here. Short cut there. The result will be horrible.
The directions paper highlights a probably insurmountable difficulty with planning: the balance between certainty and flexibility.
Developers and builders say they want certainty – tell us the rules, we will comply and we can get on with it quickly. But when they are on the ground fitting the building to the block, they cry for flexibility. Can’t the rules be relaxed a little to allow this or that.
The directions paper is now favouring certainty over flexibility. After ACT Planning and Land was pasted by the Auditor-General for being too slow, it seems they want a quick tick a box system.
It is the wrong direction because it stifles innovation. In an ideal world the planning body and the rules would allow flexibility to encourage innovation, with a big but.
Such a planning body would have to have the right quality and quantity of staff to make timely and good judgments, otherwise “flexibility” becomes a code word for lowering standards.
Faced with climate change, water shortages and the rising cost of energy, this is precisely the wrong time to surrender planning controls for many buildings to semi-qualified building certifiers and to reduce the rest to tick a box.
The better response would have been to lift the quantity and quality of planning staff.
It is no good mouthing the word “sustainable” and doing nothing about it.
The recent Australia Institute survey reveals that Canberrans are wary of the “growth” mentality and are happy with the city’s size as it is. That might suggest that they are also wary about re-development in the existing city. People obviously want some urban renewal because they do not want to live in badly designed 1960s houses, but the challenge for government is to make sure it is done well.
That means resisting developer pressure and educating buyers about the long-term costs of poor design and the benefits of good design. Market forces only work when the market is well-informed.