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Into the swamps of the current system, or a clear view of where to go?

By John Mant - posted Thursday, 22 December 2011


  • Legislation to achieve a single set of controls would require the 'single document' of controls able to be amended by either level of government. Effectively it would see the abolition of separate SEPPs, LEPs and DCPs. So far as the users were concerned, the development controls would be the controls, regardless of which level of government proposed or approved them. Instead of the 'weight' of a control depending on which level of document it was in, the actual wording of it would demonstrate its strength.
  • Any amendment to the controls would have to 'specifically amend' the controls applicable to each parcel affected by the amendment, rather than the current system where government just brings in a new control document leaving it to the users to work out what alters what.
  • Instead of trying to achieve simplification by imposing standard zones and controls everywhere, a parcel based format for a single set of controls could provide greater efficiency and certainty, while providing more opportunity for controls that respond to the many different environments that make up NSW. (This was an often-expressed demand at the consultations and in the written submissions).
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  • A single digital record of controls applying to each parcel allows the public to monitor the conditions on which development is permitted. Controls can move away from blanket prohibitions and towards more performance based solutions.
  • A parcel based certified record could facilitate the transfer of development rights, deal with matters of concern such as the location and design of buildings by direct controls rather than ineffective and distorting controls, such as those over subdivision. The consequences of reliance on subdivision controls, was also raised in the consultations.
  • A single certified record of controls would greatly increase the transparency of the system and reduce the excessive time taken to detail all the many separate documents that currently apply and argue about their legal effect, or 'weight.' There would be greater community trust in the system because there would be more understanding, more locally relevant controls and less opportunity to game the system.

Other Key Issues

Several other key issues also should have been isolated at this stage in the process, rather than let the debate on key principles be lost in the mind numbing detail of the current shambles. These include:

  • Some first principles on the nature of development control decisions and the appropriate processes for making them, rather than detailed questions about the roles of the existing panels, councils and ministers.
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  • More about the nature of planning processes as against development control decisions might reduce the semantic confusions in the list of questions.
  • More theory with respect to the role of legislation, especially in relation to 'strategic' plans could have avoided 'would you like more' questions about strategic planning. Are we talking about another control document, or do we want planners' plans determining State Budgets?

Demonstrating how limited the Review appears to have become is its decision not to deal with the fundamental issue of the nature and content of the standard planning controls, now being imposed by the legislation on communities across State. The Review has decided to leave this issue to a departmental committee consisting of an in-group of local government planners and senior department bureaucrats.

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About the Author

John Mant is a retired urban planner and lawyer from Sydney.

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