How to plan better? After a decade of lost opportunities,NSW needs a genuinely independent planning commission,free of ministerial intrusion and vested interests.Credit:James Brickwood
Fortunately for the citizens of NSW,the 2013 Planning Bill – put up by Planning Minister Brad Hazzard – was defeated in the Legislative Council by a somewhat unusual Labor-Greens-Shooters alliance that managed to assemble a one-vote majority on a number of amendments that rendered the bill meaningless.
Before this,the O’Farrell government had delivered on its promise to repeal the most notorious planning instrument from the Labor era,the Part 3A ministerial “call in” powers under the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act. The new government replaced this,however,with a more-or-less identical instrument,the “state significant development” provisions of the act. These were established for large-scale works but this path to ministerial approval is used today for any number of projects that are neither state-related nor significant,such as the function room of a cricket training facility,or a science block at a North Shore private school.
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How did we get here?
A 1970s burst of legislative reform,aimed at overcoming the urban development rorts of the Askin Liberal government,created theNSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act,the associated Land and Environment Court Act and the Heritage Act. At first,the EPA Act was considered a model protector of environmental amenity,public participation and community empowerment. However,with amendment after amendment enacted by Labor and Liberal governments,its complexity,legalese and lack of transparency made it a formidable protector of special interests and ministerial power.
Under the “open for business” ethos of the O’Farrell government and its successors since 2011,the increasing concentration of ministerial planning powers has been combined with a backdoor mechanism for unsolicited proposals,the sale of public assets on an unprecedented scale,and the fast-tracking of development approvals.
The sale of public assets – electricity infrastructure,the ports,20,000 government properties and so on – has been justified on the basis of capital recycling to fund new infrastructure,most notably transport projects across metropolitan Sydney aimed at overcoming the woeful lack transport investment in the Labor years.