Economy
PAL: Redressing the injustice
I welcome Minister Bryan Green’s decision to place under review sections of the Northern Regional Land Use Strategy. The public comment period is a step in the right direction.
This review is limited to matters relating to strategies for the regional application of the Rural Living, Environmental Living, Urban Mixed Use and Major Tourism Zones and the Furneaux Group of islands.
You can find the review documents here:
http://www.northerntasmania.org.au/current-priorities/
Whilst the public consultation period is short (to the 12th April 2013) it is at least an improvement over no consultation.
Minister Green’s decision signals an important shift in seeking public input into the Northern Regional Land Use Strategy. The Northern Strategy was implemented without any public consultation into a draft document and input opportunity was inadequate as it was limited to comment on an issues paper and framework document.
Significantly, The Northern Regional Land Use Strategy is the document, which underpins the eight new Regionalise Interim Planning Schemes, so it should provide a considerable indication of community aspirations for land use in Northern Tasmania.
Unfortunately the aspirations of the community are not reflected in the strategy.
The 2011 plan, amazingly, is for the period from 2011 to 2032, a very long period.
I claim the Northern Regional Land Use Strategy is already largely out of date.
Since the contentious Protection of Agricultural Land Policy (PAL) was used by the Government to prohibit rural dwellings, denying farmers and other rural land owners a development opportunity, significantly converting the Rural Zones of all Municipalities in Tasmania into Rural Resource Zones via Planning Directive No 1, there has been a loss of development economic activity for rural Tasmania.
This has occurred in a way, which was untransparent and not fully understood by the community.
The PAL Policy is in fact a defacto settlement policy but Tasmania has no genuine settlement policy. There was never a balancing of the aspiration to protect agricultural land with the valid and reasonable need to provide for a range of settlement options in rural Tasmania, Australia’s most decentralised state.
Living in the beautiful Tasmanian countryside is a valid choice many people wish to make and this Northern Regional Land Use Strategy’s (NRLUS) amendment may potentially be the start of processes to redress some of the injustice. Such aspirations for living enrich our society, provide places to live for a wider range of people who bring more skills, resources and opportunities to our rural communities.
However, notwithstanding this Review, Northern Municipalities are, in my opinion, still being victimised and constrained against the modernising of their planning schemes by the Tasmanian Planning Commission who spruiks the limiting mantra such as Active Rezoning prohibition. The report to the review states on page 5:
“The preparation of Interim Planning Schemes within the region has been complicated by the Solicitor General’s advice relating to ‘active rezoning’ and the apparent lack of more definitive guidance in the use of zoning within the Regional Strategy.”
and
“During the review of draft interim planning schemes by the Commission, it was identified that the statutory interim scheme process effectively limited change from current planning schemes to matters that were reasonably necessary to implement the RLUS. The reasonably necessary test was identified by the Commission as a barrier to what was identified as the ‘active rezoning’ of land and the general renovation of zoning regimes under current planning schemes through the interim scheme process.”
Strangely, one cannot find the Solicitor General’s advice relating to “active rezoning” anywhere. It is probably in a locked filing cupboard down with the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC). The Solicitor General’s advice relating to “active rezoning” should be out in the open for the public to consider.
I live in Meander Valley Municipality, which still has a 1995 Planning Scheme, now completely out of date, spatially and in every other way. The TPC is preventing Meander Valley (and other Councils) from making zone changes to bring its planning scheme into the 21st Century to reflect current land use patterns and to satisfy the aspirations of residents.
Coming back to the NRLUS strategy review, it is important to understand that the Rural Living Zones and the Environmental Living Zones are the areas, which are already the existing as well as proposed areas for habitation for land uses aside from industrial agriculture and forestry.
Those areas spatially are expressed in planning schemes but the overall strategic direction and justification to allow them is controlled by the Regional Land Use Strategy which currently has a strong focus on pushing people to live in towns and cities while restricting Rural Resource Zone dwelling development to be exclusively in support of agri and forestry enterprise.
A good example of the problem is the current Launceston City Council’s Interim Planning Scheme which avoids several areas of Rural Living and Environmental Living zonings where they should clearly occur, if sound, orderly land use planning was being implemented to reflect current land usage.
I believe that this PAL Policy driven approach is destined to cause further rural decline and the March 2013 Report paper already shows this to be the case.
Rural Living Zones and the Environmental Living Zones outside the urban growth boundary are important to maintain and invigorate the rural parts of Northern Tasmania.
Only with input from the community to this consultation will the Tasmanian Government change its overly restrictive approach to living in rural Tasmania for purposes other than forestry and farming.
Download:
Invitation_for_Comment_-_Regional_Land_Use_Strategy_of_Northern_Tasmania_(2011).pdf
RLUS_revision_proposal_20_3_13.doc