PIA Tasmanian President Mat Clark
A new Report Card rating Tasmania last behind other states in planning reform (TT here) has been questioned by the state’s planning professionals.
The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) says the report released by the Development Assessment Forum (DAF) doesn’t recognise significant planning initiatives in Tasmania. PIA Tasmanian President Mat Clark has questioned the reports’ scoring system.
“There is something fundamentally wrong with a scoring system that rates a state last, when it’s performing the best in some areas,” Mr Clark said.
“PIA is a strong supporter of the DAF model but we question being last in this report for a number of reasons.”
The DAF reporting model was set up more than ten years ago to promote improvement in planning and development assessment throughout Australia. The model is overseen by the Property Council of Australia, receives input from a number of industry organisations and continues to have the backing of PIA.
However, Mr Clark said in scoring Tasmania last, the current report has ignored some important improvements.
“There have been a number of significant steps taken since the last review in 2010, so you expect Tassie would at least have those recognised in the report scoring,” he said.
“Since the last report we have had Regional Land Use Strategies gazetted for three different regions across the state and a Planning Directive issued which unifies standards for single dwellings across the state and allows compliant dwellings to proceed without a planning permit in some areas. These are both major steps forward in planning reform. The report didn’t acknowledge that much at all in terms of scoring”.
“We are also a state with one of the fastest approval times. The last report from the Productivity Commission showed the average time local councils in Tasmania took to process DAs was 28 days with the median time of 29 days. That is well within the statutory 42 day limit and is far less than other states such as WA and Queensland which have average assessment times of 100 days and 185 day respectively.
“Planning reform has become a bit of a political football recently but the fact remains Tasmania is well into a process of improvement in planning processes.
“There are also regional planning templates based on a state template planning scheme which have been submitted to the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) for review and a Draft Hobart Capital City Plan released in November which is currently open to comment.
“Local councils are currently drafting their own individual schemes based on those regional templates and we expect the first of those to be issued to the TPC for formal assessment within a few weeks.
“The planning system obviously isn’t perfect, but we think Tasmania has not been rated correctly. Real steps are being made and have been made. The issue before this reform started was that there was little strategic planning for the state at all. It’s curious that the DAF report can’t see this.”
The DAF Report Card rates Australian States against each other with a score out of ten for improvement in planning and development processes.
Northern Territory topped the class with 7.5 with Western Australia showing the greatest improvement moving from 5.3 in 2010 to 7.1 in the current report.
Victoria and Queensland showed no movement at all and are sitting on 6.2 and 5.8 respectively.
Although bottom of the class, Tasmania’s score has moved from 5.2 to 5.4.
• President of the Local Government Association, Mayor Barry Easther: Planning System Not Broken
“It is unfortunate that the body representing some of the State’s major property developers continues to fail to understand how the planning system works,” commented the President of the Local Government Association, Mayor Barry Easther today (Fri).
“Always quick to criticize, the Property Council simply seeks to overlay national solutions to a State system that is not broken,” he said. “We do not have the delays that other States encounter, we don’t have the complex referral arrangements that other States have to endure, and councils are a one-stop-shop for the majority of development applications lodged.”
“Finding solutions to problems that don’t exist in Tasmania seems to be the modus operandi of the Property Council. Propositions such as establishing expert panels, just because they exist in two other States, fails to recognise how the current system works and that the vast majority of development applications are dealt with well inside the 42-day timeline,” Mayor Easther said.
Mayor Easther went on to say that 80-90% of development applications in the State are dealt with via delegation to expert council officers. “The suggestion that the elected members of councils don’t have the capacity or the understanding is both ignorant and offensive. Councils are charged with the role of planning authorities and councillors take that role very seriously,” he said.
“What fails to be understood in this debate is that the planning system exists for everybody – not just developers.Other people have rights as well, and councils develop planning schemes that take into account the values of communities and the land use needs of the people living in their municipalities,” Mayor Easther said.
“Councils welcome good development that is well-considered and takes into account the requirements of planning schemes. Local Government is presently working with the State Government to develop a consistency across municipal boundaries in adopting a template planning scheme and has already delivered three regional land use strategies.”
“It would be a useful exercise for the Property Council to praise the good things that are happening in this State for once, rather than constantly talking everything and everybody down,” Mayor Easther added.
