Urban Planning

109 posts

The Melbourne 2030 Audit and the Urgency of Debate

Urban Planning

Planning News July 2008Originally published as an editorial under a joint by line with Tim Westcott and Gida Di Vincenzo in Planning News 34, no. 6 (July 2008): 4.

It is a busy time in planning. The government’s announcement last month of new “Development Assessment Committees” (DACs) to make planning decisions in Melbourne 2030’s Principal Activity Centres (and other – as yet unspecified – sites of metropolitan significance) is just one aspect of a fast-changing planning environment. It occurs alongside the potentially game-changing review of the residential zones; the introduction of the Urban Growth Zone; the fallout from the Eddington Report; and with the still-mysterious review of the Act looming on the horizon.

In this context, it’s a shame that the kerfuffle over the proposed DACs largely overshadowed one of the most important recent attempts to pause and take stock. The report of the Melbourne 2030 Audit Expert Group (AEG) was released simultaneously with the government’s response to it, and it was overshadowed by the story of the DACs and their implicit threat to the role of local government. This is unfortunate, as the AEG report is a solid, well-considered stock take of where we now stand. It mounts a spirited defence of the core ideas of Melbourne 2030, but is also admirably clear in spelling out how its implementation has fallen short.

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The Auditor-General’s Report: Beyond the Headlines

Urban Planning

The tabling in Parliament on 7 May of the Victorian Auditor-General’s report into the functioning of Victoria’s Planning Land Use and Development Framework on was accompanied by a splash of media headlines that picked up on the most alarming of its findings. Subsequent events have only increased the timeliness of the report, since its negative findings about the performance of local government have no doubt helped to support – in popular perception, even if not by design – the government’s recent decision to strip some planning control over activity centres from councils. The popular media reports on the audit strongly picked up on the theme of serous dysfunction at local government level presented in the report’s findings. This was an important aspect of the Auditor-General’s conclusions, but the audit also turned up some other interesting nuggets.

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Car Parking Controls Given Heritage Listing

Urban Planning

Shopping Center Parking Lot

Plans to reform the parking controls in the Planning Scheme have been thrown into disarray following the extension of the heritage controls to cover Clause 52.06 of Victorian Planning Schemes.

The heritage protection comes after the objectives of the heritage overlay were extended to cover issues of natural, cultural, architectural, social and bureaucratic significance. It represents a win for proponents of the emerging field of administrative heritage.

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Building a Better System

Urban Planning
Planning News April 2008
Planning News April 2008

This article originally appeared under a joint by-line with Tim  Westcott and Gilda Di Vincenzo in Planning News 34, no. 3 (April 2008): 8-13. I was the lead author but incorporated some material from my co-editors.

Back in December last year, after the release of the poor results on the PIA planning report card, we noted that such a negative self-assessment was not a luxury that the planning profession could afford. We argued that in order to justify our continued existence, planners need to make sure that the planning system dramatically improves. We argued that such improvement needed to achieve two broad objectives:

  • The system has to be able to deliver better outcomes; and
  • It has to do so while imposing less burden on the community.

The following discussion outlines some of the ways that might be achieved. It is based on suggestions garnered from our calls for contributions over recent months, our own experiences, and countless informal discussions with frustrated colleagues over the years. What follows is by no means definitive: it is hoped that by collating some of these ideas (many of which are familiar old chestnuts) in one place, we can prompt both further discussion and an increased sense of purpose and urgency in the move for planning system reform.

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New Tunnel to Link Eastern Freeway with Kingdom of the Mole Men

Urban Planning

Roads Minister Tim Pallas has announced that studies will continue to assess the viability of linking the Eastern Freeway with CityLink via a proposed tunnel. The tunnel will run from Collingwood to Flemington, under the Melbourne General Cemetery and via a lost underground civilization of cave-dwelling mole men.

“This is a practical, real-world solution to Melbourne’s traffic problems,” declared  Pallas. “There are a lot of people out there who would like to see us pursue all sorts of fantasy-land proposals, like train lines to Cranbourne East and South Morang, or peak hour trains less than 20 minutes apart on the Upfield Line. But we aren’t interested in dreams. We are interested in feasible solutions, like the Collingwood – Moletopia – Flemington link.”

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Second Thoughts About Secondary Consent

Urban Planning

In last month’s Planning News, Andrew Clarke raised a number of questions that had confronted him while sorting through the case law regarding amendments to plans and permits. That article highlighted the tendency of the planning system to make hard work of what should be simple matters: I suspect the seemingly arcane quandaries he mentioned will be familiar to many practising statutory planners. At the centre of many of those difficulties is the issue of secondary consent: the amendment of plans not through Section 72 of the Act, but by acting upon flexibility built into the conditions of permits. It is supposed to be the simpler option, a shortcut that saves time compared to the path laid out in S.72. However, there is always a danger associated with leaving the marked path: you risk getting lost in the undergrowth. That, unfortunately, is where we now stand with regards to secondary consent.

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New Home Showcases Innovative Alternatives to Good Design

Urban Planning

An inner-city dwelling is being held-up as a model for other architects and builders to emulate after it incorporated a number of innovative alternatives to site-responsive design.

The project was inspired by recent designs that super-imposed images of Victorian buildings onto contemporary buildings in heritage streetscapes. “We took that basic design principle to its logical conclusion,” says designer Tony Le Corboxier. “We built a three storey concrete tilt-panel box and etched an image of a well-designed and sensitively sited building onto it.” In a satirical nod to the stuffy, old-fashioned ways of the past, the building chosen as the subject of the etching was the home demolished to make way for the new building.

The new dwelling, called simply “Innovative Brilliance,” was commended upon its completion by architectural commentators, who remarked upon its avoidance of clichéd design elements such as ornamentation, verandahs, parapets, eaves, doors, windows, or architectural merit. “This building has none of those things,” said Le Corboxier. “Architects often talk of thinking outside the box. But that’s defeatist. They just haven’t made the box big enough.”

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Chungking Express, Happy Together, and Postmodern Space

Film Urban Planning Urban Planning and Film

This is the second of two essays originally written while an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, in April-May 1998 (the first being my essay on Autumn Moon, here). The two essays follow up some similar ideas. As I’ve said on the page for the Autumn Moon essay, these were the first times I’d really started to write on the subject of cities in film.

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