review submission

This article comments on the publicly available material about DELWP’s Smart Planning program as of late March 2017. It is adapted from comments previously provided to DELWP about their proposed work program. I have updated those comments to serve as background and supporting material to my presentation at a VPELA seminar on Smart Planning on 27 March 2017.

It is generally accepted that there is a need to reform the Victorian planning system. This has been couched in terms of varying urgency by various system review over the life of the system. The recent release of a scathing VAGO report into the system – which amongst other things noted the lack of action in response to its similar 2008 review – has increased the sense that the need for reform is more urgent than some previous reviews have acknowledged.

In response to such criticism, the government can point to the existing Smart Planning reform program as a sign that a response is in hand. Yet how likely is this program to address the existing problems? Is it focussing on the right problems or the most constructive solutions? I am concerned that the focus of the early stages of Smart Planning, in particular, are poorly thought out and directed. The comments below outline some concerns with the traditional focus of reform in Victoria – which largely align with the Smart Planning work program – and then try to suggest some more productive approaches.

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What follows is a slightly edited version of my submission to the Underwood review into the operation of the Victorian Planning System (I wrote about that review back in June). With the committee due to report back early in the new year, I thought it would be timely to post it here since it’s one of the longer pieces I’ve written about the systemic problems with the Victorian planning system. A couple of points have been altered slightly to make it read better in this context, but mostly it’s as submitted.

I took a long time to post it as I have some reservations about it. I would have liked to have covered more nitty-gritty issues, which would have allowed me to be more specific and hence more constructive. Unfortunately time – and more particularly, a disillusioned sense that I wasting mine – got the better of me, so it ended up tackling just a few of the higher level systemic issues, rather than delving into detail. A more comprehensive overview of my take on the problems with the system would be gleaned by taking this in combination with the article Building a Better System that I co-wrote for Planning News (from which parts of this are cribbed), as well as my submission to the review of the Planning & Environment Act.

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