Last Updated 24/6/08
(9/6/08 - SG) Good on the Auditor General for publicizing what some of us have known (and complained) about for a long, long time
In May 2008 the Auditor General released a report into Victoria' Planning Framework for Land Use and Development. You can access a copy by clicking http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports__publications/reports_by_year/2008/20080507_land_use_and_devt.aspx - this takes you to the executive summary and the full report. If you would like to see just the Exec Summary, click here.
You may have heard about this report, although much of the press publicity centred around the report's findings about Councils. While an indictment of practices that have been allowed to go on in Councils way too long (hello - anyone home?), the fascinating part is what the report says about the Department of Planning and Community Development.
4.4 Conclusion (page 48)
"The department needs to further develop access to reliable and timely information on the performance of the state's planning system to assist it in discharging its responsibilities as the lead agency for overseeing land use planning in Victoria. In particular, this would allow continuous review and improvement of the planning system to proceed on a sound evidential basis. This should occur through two key initiatives: the development of a performance measurement framework and more regular and formal stakeholder engagement processes.
The development and management of a performance measurement framework in particular will be a significant undertaking with potential resource implications given the amount of information required to be collected, verified and analysed on an ongoing basis. However, the importance of land use planning to Victoria's current and future livability strongly suggests that the development of such an initiative should be a key priority."
But the findings that hit the mark were at at 4.3, Stakeholder Engagement (page 47):
"Currently, the department consults with relevant peak bodies and councils as part of the introduction of periodic reforms to the system as well as having ad hoc meetings with key parties as required. Regions also have informal dialogue with relevant councils in terms of their provision of services and advice.
In conjunction with improvements to performance measurement arrangements as suggested above, the introduction of more regular round table forums for dialogue and feedback between the department and representatives of various stakeholders (e.g. councils, peak bodies and the community) would allow for discussion on:
the current operation of the planning framework including areas and strategies for improvement
how best to address emerging issues and trends
While face-to-face discussion is important, there is also the potential to use other mechanisms such as ongoing surveys and focus groups to reach a broader audience to explore more specific issues such as the operation associated with parts of the Act, statutory processes and the VPP." [emphasis added]
The report nails it: there have been black holes in engaging the community; there has been an ad hoc if not cavalier approach; some people have had more access than others; there hasn't been a lot of measuring or upholding of standards; and (as we pointed out with the horror errors in Macedon Ranges' Amendment C48) there is a deep-seated lack of quality control coming from the Department generally.
The Department's reaction seems to be to cling to the one scrap of genuine good news (i.e. that the underlying architecture of Victoria's planning system is sound) like a drowning swimmer desperately clutching at a life belt. The Department's written responses, included in the AG's report, for example that the department's weekly email service somehow suffices as a means of broadly informing and consulting, suggest there's a long way to go. Click here to see Save Our Suburbs' take on the Auditor General's report.
MRRA Says:
The real shame, shame, shame of this situation is that it took this report to get the message out and across about some of the long-standing issues the community has with planning. When community has taken Councils or the Department on about many of the issues identified by the AG (and some of them are absolute clangers, all the way to breaking the law), the community has usually been dismissed or ignored or derided as 'nutters', 'nimbies' or conspiracy theorists. Most of the time, the community is objecting to bad and unaccountable processes and decisions, and LULUs - locally unacceptable land use.
The over-riding bad news for Councils and the Department is that the Auditor General did not assess the quality of outcomes produced by the planning system, or decision-making processes (opens a whole new bag of worms, doesn't it!), and he didn't seem to be aware of some of the latest abhorrent ways the government is going about implementing the recommendations of the Carbine's report. So while the government receives credit for having recommendations to improve things, the way that the government is implementing these recommendations, as we now know, gives all rights, privileges, access, lucky breaks and even free elephant passes to developers. Marry this with rumours that the halls of power are thick with development interests (while the rest of us have trouble getting responses to letters), and the message coming across clearly to community from government is, sling your hook.
Well done, Auditor General, but the vague hopes we might have had that the government might listen and begin to approach planning in a sustainable and equitable way have gone down in flames.
For example, the draft residential zones (which remove residents' rights and shut the community out of planning decisions); changes to Minister's Direction No. 11 (to allow some planning scheme amendments, including removing planning controls, to no longer need strategic assessment); and the ad hoc, opportunistic and political introduction of Development Assessment Committees tells MRRA that the AG's report has come too late. The government is spinning out of control as far as development is concerned and doesn't seem in the mood to listen to anything or anyone that isn't 'on song' with what the government wants: development-at-any-cost. There is no planning anymore, just development. No objectivity, assessment or quality needed, just a rubber stamp...