Our planning system did strangle the canal estate at Ralphs Bay

Professor West is reported as having said at a forum at the University of Tasmania on the 27th of April 2011 that Tasmania’s planning system is “in crisis and is impossible to understand”. He adds a comment – commonly made in such debates – “that the planning system is strangling economic development”.

To be effective, a planning system needs to be comprehensive. It must cater for a multitude of values that the system is set up to protect. These include heritage (natural and cultural), residential amenity, views, peace and quiet, biodiversity, orderly and sustainable development, protection of water resources. The list goes on. This complexity is a product of our understanding of the complexity of the world we live in, and that any development – however big or small – affects the environment inhabited by everyone (and everything) else.

Our planning system did strangle the canal estate at Ralphs Bay. So it should have. It was an appalling proposal from the beginning. But to say that the planning system is holding up economic development is an absurdity. The fact is, some developments should not be permitted, or if they are to be permitted, they should be allowed on strict conditions. The planning system as it is currently constituted achieves all of this.

One of the criticisms that my organisation has made of the planning system for some time is that it fails to regulate the forest industry (in the creation of private timber reserves) and fails to regulate the marine farming industry. Both of these industries have run rampant and we have seen widespread changes to the Tasmanian landscape as a result.

Attacking the planning system is common; it occurs every 5 or 7 years. Over the last 15 years the Tasmanian planning system has been reviewed a number of times and found to be effective and efficient. To say it is in crisis is an inappropriate criticism of the many Council staff and members of the Resource Management and Planning Tribunal who work very hard (with minimal resources) to get the balance right.

Finally, modern regulation is complex. We just have to look at the Corporations Act (regulating companies) or the Income Tax Assessment Act to see and understand the level of regulation required in our modern world. The days of simplicity (ie blissful ignorance) are gone forever.

*Pic: What Ralphs Bay would have looked like.