planning in victoria

68 posts

Transforming One VCAT

Urban Planning

Originally published as an editorial under a joint by-line with Tim Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in Planning News 36, No. 5 (June 2010).

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal is currently engaged in a process of introspection. The outgoing President, Justice Kevin Bell, released his review (titled One VCAT) back in February, and in May the incoming President, Justice Iain Ross, has released his own discussion paper, Transforming VCAT. The release of two documents covering such similar material so close together is at first a little disorienting, particularly for a planning profession accustomed to a more glacial approach to review and reform. Yet it was inevitable that the change of President would result in some reframing of the previous President’s findings: the new President is to be congratulated on moving forward so quickly rather than allowing the process to bog down. The term “discussion paper” might imply that the process has returned to square one, but a comparison of Transforming VCAT with the initial March 2009 “consultation paper” The Role of VCAT in a Changing World makes it clear that the slate hasn’t been wiped clean. While Transforming VCAT is also framed as a call for submissions, it builds upon the earlier work and includes responses to various of the Bell review’s recommendations.

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Sham Sandwich

Urban Planning

By "Tranquil Niche" used Under Creative Commons Licence. Click for details.

Originally published as an editorial under a joint by-line with Tim Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in Planning News 36, no. 3 (April 2010): 4.

“I am a bit tired,” was the Planning Minister’s explanation in the midst of his cringe-inducing interview with Neil Mitchell after the release of the now-infamous Windsor Hotel media plan; the same protest slipped out during the Minister’s subsequent press conference announcing that the hotel redevelopment would go ahead. On both occasions it was an unusually direct and human admission, all the more notable for the contrast with the attempts at tightly controlled media messaging that had created the problem in the first place.

There seems little doubt that regardless of what happens in this election year, the Windsor Hotel will be remembered as a low point in Justin Madden’s career. Yet what are the actual lessons to be learnt here?

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Government Announces White Elephant Breeding Program

Urban Planning

under the southern starMelbourne is set to join the global race to construct the largest non-functional building in an ambitious plan announced by the State Government, spurred on by the opening and then closure of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

That project was opened in January and then closed in February for unspecified reasons. At 828m in height, it claims the title of the world’s largest non-functional building: a glittering prize that the State Government now wants to claim for Melbourne.

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The Lawyer’s Tribunal

Urban Planning

Originally published as an editorial under a joint by-line with Tim Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in “The Lawyers’ Tribunal,” Planning News 35, no. 5 (June 2009): 4.

By the time you read this, the submission period will likely have just closed for the VCAT review.1

The Tribunal is to be commended for conducting this important review. Commenting on the Tribunal’s performance is fraught with difficulty, however. Firstly, it is hard to generalise about the performance of a Tribunal constituting many different Members; the quality of the Tribunal’s performance varies from encounter to encounter. Given the passion that often accompanies VCAT hearings, it’s also a strong test of participants’ objectivity to try to judge when they got a fair hearing and when they were dealt a legitimate stinker. Finally, one needs to filter valid grievances from the great deal of unjustified criticism that swirls around simply because the Tribunal is at the pointy end of the process and has to make hard and unpopular calls that others chicken out of.

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Senior Industry Figure Recalls Time in Local Government Fondly, Distantly

Urban Planning

John Mendoza, partner in respected consultancy Mendoza Planning, launched a blistering attack on the performance and experience of local government planners at a seminar last month, while insisting he valued their contribution to the profession. “Most local government planners are obstructionist, reactionary, poorly educated, and unhelpful,” he said, “but I don’t wish to denigrate them.”

Despite his strong criticism of Council planners, Mendoza was at pains to outline the deep affinity he shared with them. “I am, at heart, a creature of local government,” he said, citing his time as assistant to the junior town clerk at the Hawthorn City Council from 1972 to 1974 as evidence of his commitment to the sector.

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Camberwell Residents Unveil Bold Vision of Status Quo

Urban Planning

Camberwell residents have revealed their plans for the future of the Camberwell Junction precinct after the government ceded all planning powers over the area to a local residents’ group.

The dramatic development came as the government announced a range of fast-tracking measures in response to the Global Financial Crisis. “Now, more than ever, we need to be acting decisively to ensure certainty for jobs and investment,” said Planning Minister Justin Madden. “At such a time the last thing we need to be doing is wasting time with a political black hole like the Camberwell Junction.”

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Meeting Half-Way: A Collaborative Approach to Permit Assessments

Urban Planning

One of the most dispiriting things about day-to-day statutory planning is the paper warfare. Consultant planners prepare a report justifying their proposal; given the length and repetitiveness of planning schemes, that might be twenty or more pages long. Council officers then prepare their own assessment, but for various reasons they tend not to rely a great deal on the applicant’s report. Apart form the description of the proposal – the bit that applicants know a Council planner will always read – many consultants’ reports are not especially useful as the starting point for Council’s assessment. I suspect most planners will know the kind of report I mean: huge slabs of text cut and pasted from the scheme; permit triggers incorrect, incomplete, or scattered through the text; glib and formulaic non-responses to the real issues of merit; and so on.

There’s a cycle here, in that the less Council officers rely on application reports, the more sketchily they are done, reinforcing the tendency of local government planners to give them fleeting attention. Meanwhile, Councils have traditionally tried to encourage better documentation through the issuing of extensive application checklists listing every last thing to think about. This increases regulatory burden, and further reinforces the trend towards over-documented but under-thought applications. And when Council officers finally come to assess the application, they largely start from scratch, duplicating work that in many cases has been – or should have been – done by the permit applicant. The whole process sees a lot of paper exchanged, but too little communication and co-operation between Council and consultant planners in getting applications across the line.

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Driving with the Handbrake On

Urban Planning

Planning News March 2009Originally published as an editorial under a joint by-line with Tim Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in Planning News 35, no. 2 (March 2009): 4.

The big planning challenge for the government this year is to get runs on the board. Disenchantment normally advances slowly, like old age, but the release of Melbourne @ 5 Million (M@5M) late last year will likely be remembered as a defining moment in which disillusionment made a bold and striking advance. Neither the Minister nor Melbourne 2030 are new any more, and if we are to maintain our faith in both, 2009 needs to see less spin by the government, more honest acknowledgement of problems, and more tangible progress towards planning goals. We are too far into the life of Melbourne 2030 to still be polishing our implementation measures.

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