Anyone who has read my book about the Victorian planning system (amongst many other things I’ve written) will know I’m not a fan of the VicSmart system of fast-track permit applications. I have long argued that it has made the system more complex to administer, and creates a punishing, staff-burning grind at councils without providing any notable tools to help them assess applications. The system has contributed to system bloat – it is a big part of why the General Residential Zone has increased from its simple and clearly-structured six-and-half pages in 2013 to a much more complex 12-and-a-bit now, for example – and led to some clearly poor outcomes, such as preventing the consideration of sustainability issues on applications for solar panels.
However I was interested in what we can see from the data about whether VicSmart is achieving its objectives, considered on its own terms purely as a fast-track mechanism. I came up with the following three graphs from DELWP’s PPARS permit activity data.
