The Property Advisory Council of the ACT has just reported on dealings between the ACT Government and property developers. Its findings are welcome. The council’s members include property developers.
The report pours cold water on direct dealing, or secret deals between government and a particular developer. “”The starting point for negotiation between the public and private sector on property development proposals should be a preference for a competitive environment.”
It says there should only be direct dealing if there is considerable public benefit that can only be obtained from direct dealing.
The ACT Government, a its predecessors, have been prone to direct, secret deals with developers. Rather than being the only way to achieve a public benefits, they have often involved the developer extracting some benefit from public assets through lack of competition. Proposals such as Kinlyside and proposals to develop various carparks have been put on a direct-dealing basis, often in secret. The developers have justified the exclusion of competition on the ground that they did not want their innovative concept and intellectual property stolen.
The council’s report put the kybosh on that. “”The property industry does not normally lend itself to special and exclusive dealings to protect copyright and trade secrets,” it said.
It short, it does not take a great deal of innovation or intellectual property to come up with the idea of putting an office block or a shopping mall on a carpark, even if there may be innovation in the sub-contracting of the detail.
Far from getting in with the property industry by indiscriminate adoption of development projects, the government has alienated the rest of the industry which sees its competitors getting unfair advantage.
Maybe the Government thought it could circumvent community opposition to some of these projects. But community groups invariably found out anyway.
Good governance demands open, competitive tendering for property development. Exceptions should be rare to non-existent.