For an
answer to that question we can look to the achievements of Planning Minister
Frank Sartor’s Western Australian counterpart, Alannah McTiernan. Since
becoming Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, she has made sure that
community consultation is not an empty gesture but plays a valuable role in
shaping planning decisions.
The RWA’s
efforts to fulfil Robert Domm’s
promise are an embarrassment compared with the extent to which not only the WA
Government has consulted, but also acted on the community’s wishes. Take, for
example, Dialogue with the City, where 1,100 Perth citizens deliberated on the WA
Government’s options but ended up supporting an option the Department had not
even put on the table. The chosen model – known as “Network City”,
a “transit oriented development” model which features high density nodes
connected by slow and fast transport lanes – has now become a template for
Western Australian urban development.
“By
engaging with ‘ordinary citizens’, without agendas, and weighing of options
rather than debate, ridicule and anger,” environmental outcomes can be achieved
which are more consistent with community values
In
Redfern-Waterloo, fresh ideas such as Network City
(which was developed by WA planning academic) are shot down before they are
even subjected to adequate consideration. As Tim Brunero reported (SSH May
2006), RWA focus group organisers “dismissed as untenable” the concept of
property developers funding community facilities. Likewise, when I attended a
briefing at RWA headquarters the organisers said no one had even considered the
possibility of establishing incentives for people to live in accommodation
without a car space or resident parking. Too many innovative, viable
alternatives are being neglected due to sclerotic planning processes whose time
is up.
The WA Road
Freight Consensus Conference, which took place in 2001, was initiated because
there were many freight route ‘hotspots’ which were not resolved to the
community’s satisfaction. As in Redfern-Waterloo, the community felt its issues
and voice were being ignored. Unlike the NSW planning approach, the WA Labor
Government promised affected communities that they would have a say in setting
the rules regulating heavy vehicles. Four forums of 90 citizens each were
facilitated by independent experts together with departmental staff. The
results of these deliberations have become the agenda for state government,
including a new port 15 years earlier than previously planned and other
innovative land use planning measures to reduce the impacts of road freight,
such as the establishment of ‘inland ports’ or intermodal facilities. According
to facilitator Janette Hartz-Karp, “It was significant that the highly charged
atmosphere at the start of the forums was replaced by extraordinary good will
following the exercise in empathetic listening.”
The RWA too
has an opportunity to engender extraordinary good will by following the example
of Alannah McTiernan and her Department. Another WA deliberative forum which
considered the question of high-rise in the Scarborough Beach
precinct decided on a high-rise policy limit of 8 floors.
“By
engaging with ‘ordinary citizens’, without agendas, and weighing of options
rather than debate, ridicule and anger,” environmental outcomes can be achieved
which are more consistent with community values. Adds Janette, “there’s also
the positive of the ‘people’ owning the result and being prepared to stand up
for it when the opposition and media try to tear it down.”
At first I
was prepared to allow that Robert Domm
and his staff were unaware of the tremendous steps forward the West Australians
are making in long-term planning, but that can’t be true. Mr Domm, if you are
prepared to do “whatever it takes”, you should announce the commencement of a
Dialogue With the City type of process and let’s really start making some
visionary planning decisions for Redfern-Waterloo.
[South
Sydney Herald August 2006]