“The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.” Thomas H. Huxley, (aka Darwin’s bulldog), Collected Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley

Planning is much on my mind. Last week strategic, this week approvals (or a lack of them).

Assessing a DA should be very easy. Measure the application against the Strategic Plan. If it complies, approve. If it doesn’t, refuse.  If refusal could be achieved with changes, encourage amendments to expedite approval. Simple really. Except it NEVER is.

There are so many stumbling blocks twixt application and approval, each one deadlier than the last.

It’s democracy, stupid

The assessment process should be run by professionals, on both sides. But it’s far from that. Councillors, mostly amateurs with axes to grind, are the ultimate authority. They claim they take advice from professionals, but far too often we see sensible recommendations by Council planners overturned on the whims of narrowminded councillors.

It shouldn’t be that way. Hospitals are run by boards, heavy with health professionals. Our law courts, presided over by independent judges, rely on barristers and solicitors at every level. Decisions at Universities are made by a senate (or equivalent), composed from the most experienced senior academics. Yet decisions on our urban fabric, likewise vital to a just society, are presided over by the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. But wait, it gets worse.

Let’s say we put forward a proposal for a social housing project in an area identified by Council as ‘undergoing transition’ for increased housing density. Assume that our putative scheme complies with the FSR, is under the height limit, and all setbacks. But across the road is a suburban area of gentrified houses.  And 200 of those residents object to our socially desirable proposal. Council votes NO.

Why? Councillors are an elected species, so they always have one eye on the next election. Often two eyes, as councils are training grounds for State or Federal politics. How quickly they learn about majority rule. The possible votes from 200 objectors far outweigh a single applicant, and the perfectly acceptable scheme goes down. Council votes NO.

Objectors

Inviting objections into the system from locals is democracy gone mad. We don’t invite the populace to decide if an operation should go ahead, or a law should be overturned, or a tertiary course be modified (we leave that to Trump’s USA). However, we do encourage citizens to vote in referenda, make submissions to Royal Commissions or corruption bodies, or participate in a curriculum review.

In the same vein, Councils quite rightly encourage input from citizens at the strategic planning level. As discussed last week, if locals are serious about the future of their locality, they should devote their time and effort to engage with masterplans. But they rarely do, they’d rather pick off individual applications.

What about those 200 objections made against our little application? Are they rational and sensible, keeping comments to matters of planning law. Hell NO. They’re CAVE dwellers (citizens against virtually everything), not content to NIMBY (not in my backyard) they NOTE as well (not over there either). Their objections begin with “In principle we are not opposed to more housing…” and then go on to give fifty spurious reasons why they are.

For me, the ugly side of the submissions is their barely disguised racism or classism about the potential residents in social housing schemes. It will “destroy our property values” they cry, in between lies about carparking and rubbish bins in the streets, extra residents pressuring resources such as pools and parks, non-existing overshadowing, or marginal loss of amenity or views. No mention of welcoming diversity of residents, with increased rates paying for better services.

NIMBYs have successfully instilled such fear into councils that they are reluctant to approve even compliant schemes. The latest, and nastiest, tool to thwart applications is the heritage hammer. Vast swathes of the LGA are zoned as heritage overlay or heritage conservation area. Make any pre-WW2 building a heritage item. Find a social narrative to establish an embargo. It’s heritage bingo.

It’s a powerful tool: with it you can declare any application incompatible with the area, and thus refused. Ersatz romanticism rules: like Animal Farm, it’s pitched roof good, flat roof bad. In several Sydney councils submitting a contemporary design is an invitation for them to slap an Interim Heritage Order on the existing house or building to prevent redevelopment.

So who will speak up for potential new residents in our social housing proposal? Where is their voice? Who will take their side in this fight? Not council. They go BANANAs (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything). Kowtowing to the locals, and their blinkered view of ‘old equals heritage’, they say NO.

Customer service

Councils have a major problem in assessing applications: there’s a dire shortage of assessment planners. Who’d be an assessment officer if the ultimate decision makers ignore your well-honed advice, and vote for populism?

On the one hand, who’d want to see reasonable schemes that you’ve endorsed being denied by NIMBYs yelling? It feels like house-to-house combat, all FISH (fighting in someone’s house) and no CHIPs (Council helping improve planning). It depresses hardened optimists.

On the other hand, who’d want to work at a Council where well-developed strategic plans are ripped up to give aggressive developers more wriggle room? Rezoning for property development is the most profitable of get-rich-quick schemes. That’s why councils are open to corruption. Rare, but not irresistible, enough succumb to trouble for state planning authorities. Would you want to want at the coalface of a compromised level of civil service? NO.

There are some terrific council assessment officers: they know their strategic plans, they can interpret the application documents, they give great advice. They even return phone calls. But they are in the minority in my experience. Most are fresh out of planning school, learning the ropes so they can join the ranks of private town planners making applications to councils as soon as possible. Have councils created a great career path for assessment planners? Absolutely NO.

How to we fix this mess

The fix is easy to describe. The approval process must be independent of elected officials. It must have rigorous assessment against Council’s or State’s agreed masterplan. The parts fall into place: the need for robust masterplanning; respect for town planners; better professional career paths; less likelihood of partisan malfeasance and corruption.

Can it work? Absolutely YES, but for that we will need to wait until next week.

Tone on Tuesday #170: Council planning - part two: approvals.

Published 10 July (week 27) 2023

Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his.

Short pieces are published every Friday in A&D Another Thing.

Longer columns are Tone on Tuesday, published then.

You can contact TW at [email protected]