There was a very good article by Robert Harley in the property pages of the Australian Financial Review on the 31st March this year. I have copied the first part of it here.
Discussing the difficulties in obtaining planning approvals for property development in Australia, Harley discusses a 400 page report by the Productivity Commission which has analysed the difficulty developers have in obtaining approvals for projects in Australia. The Commission quotes research from the World Bank which places Australia at the 10th place globally for the ease of doing business - but 63rd for the ease of gaining construction approvals.
The Productivity Commission report finds that all three levels of government are responsible for the failure of the planning approval process and refers to the problem as objective overload. In other words, too many parties have too much opportunity to object!
Harley states that the key problem is that "Australian planning does not differentiate between those who make the rules and those who implement them".
So what's the solution?
Harley paraphrases the key Productivity Commission recommendations as follows:
1. States and communities should set the rules.
2. Applications under the rules should be independently and transparently assessed.
3. Developers then have to stick to the rules.
As Harley says, "too often the money is made by bullying approvals".
The Productivity Commission finishes it's findings by recommending that mechanisms should be established that enable early resolution of problems, community engagements, simplified zones, improved assessment criteria, better transparency and accountability.
Harley then concludes by referring to comments made by leading Australian town planner Robert Day at the recent Urban Design Institute of Australia (UDIA) conference. Day argues that developers and communities could work together. He says "the art of town founding needs to be rediscovered".
He refers to successful town planning projects such as the Ellenbrook project in WA and says these "reap the benefits of rapport with local communities, municipalities and local government agencies".
Secretive and opaque planning approval processes have no place in this vision for community engagement. And too often - particularly in recent times in WA - we have seen developers adopting the approach of making money "by bullying approvals".
The community consultation process before the sale of the Old Swanbourne Hospital resulted in a plan we all agreed to. I hope the Minister for Heritage rejects any recommendation to transfer planning approval away from our local government - which is trying to keep the development of the site consistent with that plan.
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