White Paper 2013

Elizabeth Elenius, Convenor 9C/2 Bowman

5 March, 2013,

The Hon Barry O’Farrell, MP

Premier of NSW,

Parliament House,

SYDNEY   NSW   2000

Dear Premier,

Planning White Paper

It is clear that there is strong concern at the grass roots community level about the proposals outlined in the Planning Green Paper, noting that of the 1220 submissions received, the vast majority were from members of the community (739) and from community groups such as ours (136).   Many of the issues raised by the community were echoed in the submissions from Local Government (114). The Government now has a challenge to deliver a system that is acceptable to the broad community, ie the electors in NSW.

We, in Pyrmont, have first-hand experience of living in a “planned” community, and we continue to live through the ad hoc and piecemeal planning decisions initiated by the previous government, with many, ultimately, signed off by your government.    These include:

• Piecemeal development of the Bays Precinct and continuing delay in releasing the Bays Precinct report which, we hope, will contain viable planning principles to guide future integrated development of the Bays
• Absence of the social infrastructure required to support a residential population of up to 15,000 residents (now around 12,000) and 16,000 workers in Pyrmont, noting that when planned it was assumed by the planners that there would be no children living in Pyrmont – WRONG!
• The lack of planned new infrastructure to serve the local communities moving to the City with the construction of Barangaroo, Darling Harbour redevelopment, Central Park, and Harold Park. 

Planned Developments Demonstrate No Improvement

In the consultation on the redevelopment of Darling Harbour, we were appalled to learn that the winning consortium has no obligation to provide transport to the site, or educational and sporting facilities for the children and young people moving to Haymarket.  One would have expected Infrastructure NSW to have thought of these matters – but they did not and have now referred them back to their respective silos (Departments) where they will no doubt languish.  

With the demolition of the monorail, there will be a reduction in public transport to the centre of the City.  The Transport Master Plan is silent on the timelines for starting and finishing the proposed light rail extensions, noting that the Government has not even finally committed to the project itself.  27,000 people are planned to attend functions at Tumbalong Park, in addition to those living there, and attending functions at other venues, yet there is no commitment towards transporting them there!

Much of this lack of planning can be sheeted home to the old Part 3A system, now replaced by the projects of State Significance system which enables projects to be quarantined from the standards that apply elsewhere.   But most of it comes down to the silo mentality in each government department or instrumentality.   It’s all very well to combine Roads and Maritime Services on paper, but they still operate as silos.  

§  As an example, we in Pyrmont, have to deal with at least 3 separate divisions within the Department of Planning when it comes to getting public land maintained – and none of them talk to one another.

Given our experiences with “planning” in our neighbourhood, we have little confidence that pushing through more development, with few or no controls, in the shortest possible time scale, with no community consultation at the local level will deliver anything but future blight which will cost a lot more to fix up.

New Legislation Requires New Thinking

Before finalizing the White Paper, we ask that the Government listens to the community and ensures that the new legislation incorporates the following:

• Ecologically Sustainable Development must be the key driver of all planning – not Growth.
• Meaningful community participation must be guaranteed at both strategic planning level and when individual developments are being assessed
• Code-complying development must be limited to low risk, low impact development
• New large scale developments must not be assessed in isolation.  The cumululative impact, especially on provision of adequate social, educational, sporting, aged care, childcare and cultural infrastructure, must be assessed and if inadequate, provided, possibly through developer contributions
• Decision-making must be open and transparent and involve publication of the reasons for particular decisions
• Decision-making panels must be equally accessible to members of the community as well as developers
• No spot rezoning should be allowed unless it complies with the strategic planning for the area
• Enterprise zones must conform with the strategic planning framework
• Appeal rights should apply equally to communities as well as developers
• Any reviews of strategic plans must involve genuine community engagement

Further, we seek an assurance from you that the Government will provide at least six months to enable members of the community to examine the White Paper, and formulate their responses.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Elenius,

Convenor