review submission

5 posts

Smarter Planning

Image by Intrinsic-Image - click for detailsThis article comments on the publicly available material about DELWP’s Smart Planning program as of late March 2017. It is adapted from comments previously provided to DELWP about their proposed work program. I have updated those comments to serve as background and supporting material to my presentation at a VPELA seminar on Smart Planning on 27 March 2017.

It is generally accepted that there is a need to reform the Victorian planning system. This has been couched in terms of varying urgency by various system review over the life of the system. The recent release of a scathing VAGO report into the system – which amongst other things noted the lack of action in response to its similar 2008 review – has increased the sense that the need for reform is more urgent than some previous reviews have acknowledged.

In response to such criticism, the government can point to the existing Smart Planning reform program as a sign that a response is in hand. Yet how likely is this program to address the existing problems? Is it focussing on the right problems or the most constructive solutions? I am concerned that the focus of the early stages of Smart Planning, in particular, are poorly thought out and directed. The comments below outline some concerns with the traditional focus of reform in Victoria – which largely align with the Smart Planning work program – and then try to suggest some more productive approaches.

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The Wrong Idea Not Implemented Properly (Submission on VicSmart)

Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius!

This is my submission to the recent VicSmart review (with a few minor corrections). Obviously it is partly based on my Planning News article “Breaking the Land Speed Record in an Engineless Car,” but it is considerably expanded.

Introduction

The new VicSmart provisions are the culmination of a long push towards implementing two closely related reforms: Code a\Assessment and a fast-track permit process. These ideas have been central to the planning reform agenda of DTPLI and its predecessors for some time. It is seven years since Code Assessment was put on the reform agenda by the Cutting Red Tape in Planning report, and ten since Better Decisions Faster floated a “short permit process.”

Throughout this period there has been a lack of clarity about how code assess and a short permit process would work. These measure have been sold in reviews such as the Modernising Victoria’s Planning Act work by floating a false idea that the system currently operates on a one-size-fits-all model. This is not the case, as myself and many other submitters to previous reviews have pointed out. The system currently includes various systemic measures to fast-track simple matters (permit exemptions, notice exemptions and the like) and Councils routinely employ streaming measures of various degrees of sophistication.

The confusion on such points, and the lack of focus throughout the refinement of Code Assessment on drafting specific codes to use with the system, has now led to a seriously compromised fast-track process. The proposed VicSmart measures show a poor understanding of the distinctive challenges of simple / fast-track statutory planning work. They create unreasonable demands on Councils while not providing Councils the tools that will be genuinely helpful in pursuing applications more quickly. Instead they create additional complexity that will actually hinder existing successful fast-track measures.

VicSmart as currently released will be counterproductive. It should be abandoned in favour of more genuinely facilitative measures.

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Begging for Reason: My Submission to the Victorian Zone Review

This is a very slightly edited version of my submission, lodged last Friday, to the review of Victorian zones. The period for comment has just been extended until 28 September 2012; I urge everyone to make a submission.

The changes currently proposed to the zones are extensive, covering all major categories of zone (residential, business / commercial, industrial, and rural) and involving multiple significant changes to each zone. The proposed reforms mix together changes that were contemplated under the previous government and the subject of considerable work (the “three-speed” residential zones) with others that have appeared with little foreshadowing (most of the others). Very little information or strategic justification has been provided with this package.

I am a keen proponent of planning system reform and in previous submissions to reviews and writing on system reform have prided myself on providing constructive criticism. Unfortunately the paucity of information makes it difficult to be positive or constructive about this review as the information provided gives a striking sense that these reforms have been rushed and poorly thought through. They also appear to involve policy shifts – notably a weakening of activity centre policy – that are inappropriate ahead of the completion of the Metropolitan Strategy.

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Fixing the Victorian Planning System: Six Key Issues

building the new city

What follows is a slightly edited version of my submission to the Underwood review into the operation of the Victorian Planning System (I wrote about that review back in June). With the committee due to report back early in the new year, I thought it would be timely to post it here since it’s one of the longer pieces I’ve written about the systemic problems with the Victorian planning system. A couple of points have been altered slightly to make it read better in this context, but mostly it’s as submitted.

I took a long time to post it as I have some reservations about it. I would have liked to have covered more nitty-gritty issues, which would have allowed me to be more specific and hence more constructive. Unfortunately time – and more particularly, a disillusioned sense that I wasting mine – got the better of me, so it ended up tackling just a few of the higher level systemic issues, rather than delving into detail. A more comprehensive overview of my take on the problems with the system would be gleaned by taking this in combination with the article Building a Better System that I co-wrote for Planning News (from which parts of this are cribbed), as well as my submission to the review of the Planning & Environment Act.

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