Better strategic planning is essential to deliver liveable, productive, and sustainable cities and communities, according to industry and political leaders attending Built Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) 2009.
BEMP involves a collaboration of leading property industry voices, this year exploring the principles for planning sustainable communities.
To stimulate debate, a consultation draft of Principles for planning sustainable communities, prepared by the Allen Consulting Group, was released.
Identifying ten guiding principles that should typify Australia's strategic planning framework, the paper seeks to inform the newly created COAG Taskforce charged with improving strategic planning in Australia's major and capital cities.
"Recent federal government activity to fund nation building infrastructure has revealed a lack of integration between land use and infrastructure planning," says Steve Johnston, CEO of the Planning Institute of Australia.
"We need to rectify this so that land use and infrastructure plans are aligned and complementary. COAG's review of Australia's planning arrangements is welcomed by the planning profession as a valuable first step."
CEO of the Australian Institute of Architects, David Parken said there were successful blueprints for driving reform across Australian governments' planning systems.
"We should draw from Australia's successful experience implementing National Competition Policy (NCP) reforms," he says.
"A key step is getting governments Australia-wide to sign up. We need a new Intergovernmental Agreement between the Commonwealth, States and Territories and local government acknowledging their respective roles and responsibilities for planning to achieve well designed, prosperous, liveable and sustainable communities."
CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, Megan Motto said nationwide reform would deliver more robust local plans, not less local influence.
"Ideally, we should have Urban Action Plans developed for every major city and regional area across Australia," she says.
"These plans should reflect local stakeholder input and set out clear targets and performance measures to guide and ultimately gauge the effectiveness of the plans."
