PLANNING: The paradigm shift towards market-driven ad-hoc development …

*Pic: Jean-François Renaud, Flickr

Michael Buxton, Professor of Environment and Planning at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University and Robin Goodman, Deputy Dean, Sustainability and Urban Planning in RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies have written a very insightful academic paper on the impact of planning ‘reform’ on the Victorian land use planning system ( Download below ).

You only have to read the Conclusion, below to understand what the Tasmanian draft Statewide Planning Scheme is all about. It’s scary stuff.

Similar to Victoria, the Hodgman Government’s planning law ‘reform’ represents a paradigm shift in Tasmania’s land use planning system: away from careful and considered strategy-led planning, towards facilitating market-driven ad hoc development.

Conclusion: There are strong connections between Victorian planning system changes and the national planning reform agenda being followed in most Australian states. Recent changes to state planning systems seek to reduce the strength of land use planning regulations, lessen the contributions of local communities, objectors and local councils to planning decisions and empower development companies. The Victorian system changes are also the result of decades of the politicisation of planning by locating responsibility for land use planning in the state planning agency under direct ministerial control, abolishing an independent state planning body, imposing deregulated standardised planning systems intended to facilitate development onto local government, and constant ministerial intervention in planning decisions. All these represent a paradigm shift in the Victorian land use planning system away from careful and considered strategy-led planning, towards market-driven ad hoc development facilitation.

• Download … The Impact of Planning ‘Reform’:

Buxton_and_Goodman_The_impact_of_planning_‘reform’.pdf

*Michael Buxton & Robin Goodman (2014) The impact of planning ‘reform’ on the Victorian land use planning system, Australian Planner, 51:2, 132-140, DOI: 10.1080/07293682.2014.892866
To link to the full article visit here http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07293682.2014.892866

*Sophie Underwood is from the Freycinet Action Network, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreycinetActionNetwork/