Government Backs "Making Local Policy Stronger" Report - But Will It Deliver For Local Communities?

(29/10/07 - P) Recommends more prescription ('must' and 'no') but local policies are looking like endangered species

This recently-released report is the State government's response to mounting community pressure to allow local planning policies to carry more weight in planning decisions. At the moment, State planning policies - which themselves have plenty of holes and at times are little more than ambiguous and fluffy motherhood statements - take precedence over anything in the local strategic (MSS) and policy sections of a planning scheme. Local strategic and policy sections are incredibly important because they are just about the only place in Victoria's 'one size fits all' planning schemes where each municipality can describe itself and what makes it different from every other municipality.

The report makes five main recommendations which it seems will be acted on by State government without community consultation.

"Making Local Policy Stronger": Five Main Recommendations

1. Provide more certainty by making it easier to implement policy through planning controls: entails revising State zones, overlays and particular provisions so they can better describe the state and local outcomes wanted -

2. Make it clearer how State policy should be implemented at local level

3. Progressively review planning schemes to clearly express state and local strategic intentions: use zones and overlays rather than policy to control use and development, establish a Planning Policy Technical Committee to review policy implementation, focus the review of planning schemes on effectiveness of policy implementation and quality assurance, more support for identifying problems with planning schemes, continue expert review of local policies -

4. Increase the effectiveness of local policy by simplifying the way it is presented in planning schemes: amalgamate local policies into the Municipal Strategic Statements to produce a single, "simplified" local section of planning schemes, add 'policy guidelines' where direction is required in the exercise of 'discretion' -

5. Clarify when prescriptive provisions can be used: develop guidelines to say when prescriptive rather than performance based provisions are appropriate and how they should be expressed.

MRRA Says:

Overall, the State government's attempt to give something back to communities deserves applause. The critical issue, of course, is whether the end result is actually a 'win' for residents or will the changes just make an intolerable situation worse. There simply isn't enough information at the moment to make a definitive assessment about whether this is going to be a step forward or a step back. The government is essentially asking communities to trust it... Can we? Should we?

This long-awaited attempt to 'strengthen' local planning policies has some highlights and yet also has what can only be called lowlights, even if for no other reason than that they create doubt that this process is about more, not less, for ordinary people.

Highlights include Recommendation 1, which if done properly has the potential to provide significantly improved control of land use and development at a local level. Recommendation 2 is overdue, and welcome. Recommendation 5 embodies the at-long-last realization that allowing 'anything anywhere' isn't producing good planning outcomes or any certainty (except for developers and speculators), and that there is a need to reinstate some hard and fast rules in planning. If it comes off, it will get a 'big tick' from long-suffering residents - but only as long as the rules ARE hard and fast for everyone.

One of the lowlights is that the report and recommendations have been put together by a committee of (and through consultation with) almost exclusively planning industry players, with the only semblance of community input coming from a submission by Save Our Suburbs. Reading through the report there sometimes seems to be a lack of direction, and looking at the discussion in some sections, there's a vague sense that the recommendations may have been arrived at almost by accident. For example, at 2.7 on the one hand the report finds that VCAT carefully considers local policy but at the same time says local policy isn't a decisive factor in a large number of VCAT decisions. Is the point being made here that because VCAT ignores it, local policy is ineffectual?

The report acknowledges a lack of State level policies for environmentally sustainable development and rural areas, but doesn't attempt to deal with either of those issues. The initial focus is limited to residential zones, which of course gives it a distinctively suburban flavour. We desperately hope someone keeps in mind the fact that the final changes will apply in rural areas as well.

The biggest worry is the potential for changes to strengthen State policy and eliminate local policy. Recommendation 3 and Recommendation 4 are the real danger areas for communities because between them these recommendations will, in essence, see the end of local policies.

While the elements of Recommendation 3, on paper, sound like improvements, it is a big ask indeed to expect community support for the transfer of local policy to other controls at this stage. There needs to be a whole lot more detail about how policies will be translated into zones and overlays, and some big guarantees that the intent of local policies won't be compromised or lost and that this will be a more effective way of getting local policies to 'stick', before MRRA will support it. The last thing any of us need is to be pushed from the already sizzling local frying pan smack-dab into the totally State-owned fire...

Recommendation 4 proposes to amalgamate the current local policy section with the local strategy section, i.e. the Municipal Strategic Statement [MSS]. While some local policy would be translated into new zone provisions and overlays, as per Recommendation 3, it sounds as if the 'rest' are headed for oblivion by being lumped into the MSS as policy guidelines. This is a big loser, because everyone knows guidelines can be (are) ignored - hey, if it's good enough for VCAT to ignore them, it's good enough for everyone else to do it! All up, the 'policy guidelines' proposal has the potential to make local policy a total non-event. MRRA isn't prepared to take the leap of faith that will be required to back this one in.

The Association also holds some strong concerns about the cavalier-sounding attitude towards 'slimming down' the local section of planning schemes. The committee looked at the biggest Municipal Strategic Statement in Victoria and 'found' lots of ways to get rid of the 'dead wood'. It then seems to have decided that everyone's MSS could be similarly padded and needs to be stripped down to bare essentials, and worse, take some new 'generic' wording instead. Whoa! Just hang on a minute - one of the biggest problems with planning in Victoria is the one-size-fits-all mentality - not least because one size definitely doesn't fit all. The last thing local communities need is any more 'generic' one-size-fits-all crap being forced on them, especially State level generic crap that replaces local content. Nup, MRRA can't support that.

So, it's a bit of a mixed bag, really. MRRA hopes that, in the absence of community consultation, the State government takes great care that in moving towards implementing this level of change that it avoids the pitfalls that could create another monster for local communities, reinforcing their impotence and leaving them without a way to express themselves and their values in their own planning schemes.

New Advisory Note Details Changes To Amendment Processes And Approvals

(28/3/07 - SG) "Reducing Amendment Timeframes": the question is, will "quicker" produce better planning outcomes?

The Department of Sustainability and Environment has just released a new Advisory Note addressing performance targets for amendment processes, DSE actions to reduce amendment timeframes, and future changes to streamline amendments. You can check it out at www.dse.vic.gov.au/planning

MRRA Says:

A promise of greater quality control and consistency would perhaps be more welcome than 'faster'. It would also be a great help to communities and less of a waste of ratepayers' time and funds if the government made it clear to all Councillors and developers that changing the planning scheme at whim, for no better reason than someone wants to do something the existing zone doesn't allow, won't be entertained.

Macedon Ranges' experiences with amendments in recent times varies from the painfully slow Amendment C21/C48 (which reportedly 'sat' on the Minister's and/or DSE's desk for a year) to the disasters of the abandoned C8 (Residential and Industrial Land) amendment, the failed C9 (Eppalock catchment) amendment, the nonsensical C47 and C49 amendments and the substantially incomplete C52 amendment Council moved forward last year to facilitate the Macedon House development in Gisborne.

We aren't quite at the 'anything would be better than what we've got' stage, but it's close...

Residents Beware: Minister's Claim That He's Got Rid Of Planning Permits Could Bite You

(18/9/06 - P) Heaps of confusion: Minister changes zone controls but you may still need a permit under an Overlay

It's rare for something to be as simple as it seems. Planning Minister Hulls' recent announcement that the government would change planning schemes to remove the need for a planning permit for minor works gave a misleading impression that people could do what they liked. What the Minister has in fact done is delete the permit requirement from planning scheme zones. A permit may still be required under an Overlay - or some other planning scheme control - applying to a property.

It can be fairly complicated so the best move is to check with Council first, and get that advice in writing. Don't just take your builder's word about whether or not you need a planning permit - you need the latest information about a what a planning scheme says, and that's not a builder's job! If you are using a private building surveyor, especially for something as permanent as a shed, specifically ask them to check about planning permits with Council before a building permit is issued - or acted on. If the shed has to be knocked down, it will be an expensive mistake.

Another big problem is building surveyors who don't check with Council first about whether a planning permit is needed before issuing a building permit. The property owner then finds they needed a planning permit and are left to pick of the pieces of having an illegal construction and having to then try to get a retrospective planning permit. Macedon Ranges Council's Director of Planning, Ms Veronica Schilling advised Council last Wednesday that this situation occurs often, once or twice a month.