Local communities to be
cut out of development decisions

Bob Briton

A soft lapping noise can be heard across Adelaide right now. It 
is the sound of developers licking their chops at the prospect of 
the so-called Sustainable Development Bill, ushering in a bright 
new "pro-investment" era. A draft bill has already been prepared 
and has drawn very favourable comment from business quarters.

Bryan Moulds, executive director of the Property Council of South 
Australia, certainly approves of it. "This raises the bar for all 
the other states and makes South Australia a greater investment 
attraction," he told the Australian Financial Review earlier this 
month.

The draft bill proposes the separation of planning policy powers 
for development within the state from the decision-making on 
individual projects. This means that decisions about whether or 
not development projects meet the needs of local residents would 
be taken away from elected councils and given to appointed 
panels. Developers have been campaigning for this for a long time 
and, finally, it appears to be within reach.

The newly powerful Development Assessment Panels would be made up 
of a government appointed chairman, three elected members of 
council (or three council officers) and three professionals with 
relevant experience. The arrangements give developers of 
unpopular projects much more cause for optimism in the decision-
making process. The local council is reduced to the status of 
what's called "stakeholder" in the corporate-babble commonly used 
by bureaucrats in recent years.

The Commonwealth's Productivity Commission has already singled 
out the separation of planning policy from building approvals as 
an area for "reform" in its draft report on housing affordability 
for the Howard Government.

This measure is designed to help investors seeking to make fast 
bucks, as well as the developers. Properties increase in value by 
an average 21 per cent when they can be sold with a piece of 
paper showing development approval.

Some Adelaide councils are already taking a lead. Salisbury 
Council only decided six out of almost 4000 planning and 
development approvals in 2003. "It frees us up to spend our time 
on policy-type decision-making", Mayor Tony Zappia told the 
Weekend Australian last year. The proposed legislation would 
"liberate" councils of this role entirely.

The South Australian draft bill also reflects the thinking of the 
federal-government-sponsored Development Assessment Forum (DAF). 
South Australia is obviously only a test case for changes 
envisaged for the rest of Australia. Peter Verwer, chief 
executive of the Property Council of Australia, heads up the DAF. 
A model for "reform" — resembling the SA proposal in many ways -
- was developed under its auspices.

A meeting of the Australian Local Government Association was held 
in Hobart last month where the DAF model was considered and 
condemned. Association President Mike Montgomery had the 
following to say to ABC Regional News:

"Right from the start we want to nip in the bud any suggestion 
that local government be taken out of the assessment process and 
we want to make it perfectly clear that local communities need to 
have their say and need to be allowed in an efficient and 
effective process to be able to refuse and modify development 
applications that aren't in keeping with the amenity of a 
community."

The model displays the sympathies prevalent in government circles 
for the position of developers. A feature of the plan is for 
developers to have a right to appeal against decisions before a 
review panel while local government and the local people would 
have no such right!

Another consequence of the changes would be their dampening 
effect on opposition campaigns within local areas earmarked for 
misguided development. Tina Perinotto — in her Australian 
Financial Review article of March 5 — gave the example of the 
residents that organised to stop residential development on the 
Callan Park site in Sydney.

The chances of mobilising people to fight onslaughts like that 
would be greatly reduced if local people knew in advance that 
decisions were to be taken by appointed "panels" with no right of 
appeal.