BPN draws the heavyweights on NSW Planning

Hosted by 7:30 NSW presenter Quentin Dempster, the line-up
of speakers included planning minister Brad Hazzard, executive director
planning reform and general counsel Marcus Ray, City of Sydney
councillor and planning expert John Mant and independent planning
consultant Wendy Sarkissian. The forum was co-hosted by independent
Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, Christian Democrat Party leader Reverend Fred
Nile, Labor planning shadow minister Luke Foley and Greens MLC David
Shoebridge.

Even the audience was studded with the who’s who of town, with Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore making an appearance.

The tone of the forum was for the most part positive and
constructive. Better Planning Network convenor Corinne Fisher stated
that planning was too critical an issue to be bound by politics. Dr
Wendy Sarkissian said she wouldn’t have bothered coming if she thought
the minister wasn’t open to ideas on planning reform.

• See an article based on a presentation delivered by Dr Sarkissian to Harvard University: Wendy Sarkissian on NIMBYism, community resistance and housing density

The crux of the issue is that Sydney will need to accommodate 1.3
million more people by 2031. More houses need to be built, and if it’s
to be done in a sustainable fashion, it means higher densities for
existing areas.

The government states that planning reforms aim to balance this need
with the needs of the community, the environment and the economy. But
has the right balance been struck? According to the speakers (aside from
minister Hazzard and Marcus Ray) and a sometimes unsettled audience,
it’s a resounding no.

Concern mainly focused on the removal of appeal rights for community
on site-specific developments, the watered down wording of sustainable
development ideals in the legislation, the range of discretionary powers
the minister would have, and the perceived weakness of community
engagement.

The government speakers repeatedly assured the audience that it was still listening to the community and open to debate.

First up was planning minister Brad Hazzard, who admitted planning reform was going to be “a challenge”, but the current 30-year-old system wasn’t delivering.

Hazzard said the government was seriously committed to the community.

“Normally when a government in the Westminster system gets to the
white paper stage it’s all go,” he said. “We took the decision as
government that this is so important that we would also continue
consultation at the white paper stage.

“We are doing what governments generally don’t do: we’re consulting to the nth degree.

“We are genuinely open to consideration.”

Hazzard said that two-thirds of the 545,000 houses needed are “for
our kids”. He stated that his system would protect the environment,
protect heritage and allow for intergenerational equity.

“I know it’s a challenge because people often don’t switch on to
these issues until it’s happening right next door,” said Mr Hazzard,
echoing the sentiments of BPN.

But he pointed to Vancouver, saying that one in four people there had been involved in strategic planning.

“We have to find a way to outreach to as many different people as we can,” he said.

How that will happen is yet to be properly elucidated.

Next up was executive director planning reform Marcus Ray,
whose “potted history” of planning reform and roundabout answers to an
increasingly fed-up audience went down like a lead balloon.

His position of having to defend the reforms as they stood was not
enviable, and he was unable to offer any certainty to audience concern,
only noting that the conversation was still open. “We are on a journey;
this is not the end,” he said, as his body language became increasingly
guarded.

“Poor, poor Marcus,” whispered another of the speakers during his question and answer session.

Mr Ray did, however, provide some comfort by saying that
site-specific factors would come into play regarding whether a
development would be code assessable, and therefore not able to be
scrutinised by the community.

“They will always be site specific factors,” he said. “If it’s
environmentally sensitive land it’s very unlikely that code assessment
will be the assessment track.

“Having a pub in a residential area would never be code assessable.”

The most contentious issue of the day was undoubtedly the removal of community objection to code assessable developments.

Fielding a question of why developers had objection rights yet
community did not, Mr Ray said, “The community and the developers are
equal,” which was met with a chorus of groans.

“It’s not a question of appeals rights; it’s a question of engaging,” he said. “We can’t keep having those site-specific wars.”

It’s 1979 all over again

City of Sydney councillor John Mant came next, with the valuable experience of having developed planning systems in “three or four other states”.

He called his speech “1979 rebadged?” because he thought the new
planning system had largely been kept. As a lawyer, Mant provided some
unique insight into how the legislation had been drafted and how it
reflected a particular ideology.

“It’s important to grasp the ideology present in the legislation,” he
said. “Sometimes the legislation is written in such a way that it can
only really be driven in one direction.”

Mant said we should be concerned by the “range of discretions” in the legislation.

“The state has had ministers for planning and premiers who have made
what I would call not impartial decisions under the planning system,” he
said.

He also showed concern regarding strategic planning and the weakness of language around environmental and social considerations.

The first strategic planning principles states: “Strategic plans
should promote the State’s economy and productivity through facilitating
housing, retail, commercial and industrial development and other forms
of economic activity, having regard to environmental and social considerations.”

It is the “having regard to” part that concerns Mant.

“We lawyers know that ‘having regard to’ means you have regard to it
and then you pass by the other side,” he said. “It has a very clear
meaning. I know this because I wrote a planning act in South Australia.

“Within a year or two the Supreme Court said, ‘Well, that means you
can ignore it.’ So we had to strengthen those words very considerably in
the Act.”

He also showed concern regarding Principle 10, which states: “Local
plans should facilitate development that is consistent with agreed
strategic planning outcomes and should not contain overly complex or
onerous controls that may adversely impact on the financial viability of
proposed development.”

“I find this a pretty extraordinary section,” he said. “The purpose of development controls is to affect financial viability.

“Legally it’s a nonsense sentence but it reflects some of the ideology present in the legislation.”

He also described as “disturbing” the fact there is no legal
consequences if the provisions of the legislation regarding community
participation is not followed. The whole community participation process
is not mandatory except for the requirement to give notice, which is
the current requirement.

These people are not going away – Wendy Sarkissian

A breath of fresh air to many in the audience was final speaker Dr Wendy Sarkissian,
an independent planning consultant and an expert on community
engagement. Sarkissian brought experience in psychology and community
development to try to understand why community groups have been so vocal
in their opposition to the proposed reforms.

“What the government needs to listen to here is what home means to people,” she said.

Dr Sarkissian described people as animals hard-wired to protect their territories.

“Home is the territorial core. It’s where we’re attached as animals to our place.”

She said that she knew from 45 years of working in planning and
community engagement that “the BPN and their colleagues are not going
away” and it was in the interest of the government to listen.

“Why the great rush?” she asked. “I think that time is money. But not
in the way you’d imagine it. Giving people time will ultimately save
money.”

Resident activism can stop projects dead in the tracks, she said, saying that afterwards trust can never be rebuilt.

“The expense of delays brought about by extra-statutory protest will be massive.”

Sarkissian said she didn’t believe the community engagement strategy being proposed by the government was “leading practice”.

“I’d be convening a group of the wise engagement specialists and
sitting down and looking at how the principles of inclusion could inform
the next stages,” she said. “We have the best community engagement
practitioners and planners in the world. I’d like to see them involved
in this conversation.”

The Vancouver model has failed

She also noted that the oft-referred to Vancouver model was not where we should be looking.

“I’m here to tell you they’re not the answer to our problems,” she
said to applause. “Let’s get rid of this cultural cringe that we need to
take our advice from outsiders.

“We don’t need Vancouver. Vancouver fails as a model on scale, on culture, on the money, on timing.”

We have to have higher density and we can make it work

When questioned by the audience on whether high-density housing was a
necessary “ideology”, Sarkissian made it patently clear where she stood
as an environmental ethicist.

“The living earth is in peril,” she said. “And human behaviour has
caused some of these problems. And the valid and powerful underpinnings
of this legislation are about trying to create a sustainable Sydney and a
sustainable NSW. And sustainability is in everybody’s interest. I think
we have to have higher density housing. I believe we can make it work.
It doesn’t have to be grotesque; it doesn’t have to be high-rise
necessarily. But underpinning this legislation is a basic biophysical
reality about the state of the earth.

“I’m a density person. I’ve written award-winning books on
higher-density housing. I’ve done a huge study of resident satisfaction
and higher density housing in Vancouver.

“I’m not here to stop higher density housing.

“I’m here to have an informed public discussion about it, and I think
if people could understand better the sustainability forces behind the
government’s initiatives to increase density then we’d have a better
conversation about it.

“I’m here for density; but I’m not here for density that’s poorly
done, and I’m certainly not here for density that’s rammed down people’s
throats.”

And, on a sustainability angle, this is the crux of the issue. We
need higher density housing. But we also need community understanding
and consent. Without perceived legitimacy, the government’s reforms will
cause massive community unrest. And the brunt of this would be taken by
local councils, whose doorsteps protests would be conducted on.

Where we go from here depends on if the government is serious about
its commitment to effective community engagement or whether it’s simply
talking the talk. Time will tell.

Photo credit: Izzy, Ipfoto