Michael Buxton

The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria invite you to attend the launch of the National Trust’s Advocacy Toolkit. This free online resource, supported by the Victoria Law Foundation, will [try to] provide communities across Victoria with the tools they need to protect their natural and cultural heritage. Wednesday 16 May, 12.45pm at Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A'Becket Street, Melbourne.

Date and Time: Wednesday 16 May, 12.45pm for 1pm–2pm

Location: Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne.

At this special launch during Law Week 2018 and the Australian Heritage Festival, hosted in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, experts and community advocates will discuss recent heritage campaigns, sharing insights arising from both wins and losses, and their top tips for successful advocacy.

Confirmed speakers:

Professor Michael Buxton, RMIT University
Fiona Austin, President, Beaumaris Modern
Moderator: Felicity Watson, Advocacy Manager, National Trust of Australia (Victoria)

Refreshments provided.

This event is presented by National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. The Advocacy Toolkit is generously supported by the Victoria Law Foundation.

Bookings Essential.

Book online: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=346911

Or contact the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Bookings Team: 9656 9889; [email protected].

Please feel free to distribute this invitation to anyone who may be interested in attending.

"Labor is developing what is meant to be the most fundamental restructure of the Victorian planning system since the 1996 introduction of the Victoria Planning Provisions, the new Smart Planning program. [...] A simpler, more efficient and certain planning scheme is long overdue, but Smart Planning is not the way to provide it. This is a $25 million program managed through the Smart Planning program Rules team. If the system is simply to implement five minor changes, along with online access, then the program is a massive waste of money. Alternatively, if future stages are to radically change the system, then the government is hiding its intentions, locking out community groups from the process, and intends to present the public with a fait accompli." (Professor Michael Buxton*)

Labor is developing what is meant to be the most fundamental restructure of the Victorian planning system since the 1996 introduction of the Victoria Planning Provisions, the new Smart Planning program.

For the first time, the government has issued a tender for significant private sector involvement in the development of this program. A private consulting company has been given the significant role in developing what is meant to be further privatisation of the planning system.

Nobody knows what the precise instructions to this firm are because few public criteria were provided. However enough is known to provide a broad outline of government intentions. Criteria include the need to reduce regulation and regulatory costs by simplifying planning rules particularly through code assessment, lowering the level of permit triggers, increasing ‘as-of-right’ approvals and reducing local variation. The result will be a new model planning scheme which includes a new structure for the Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP) and new content including revised zones, overlays and particular provisions.

The new system is being promoted on the need to ‘simplify and modernise Victoria’s planning rules’, reduce complexity and increase efficiency. The rhetoric of ‘cutting red tape’ and ‘reform’ are used to sell an increasingly deregulated system.

Stages in the process

There are two main elements to the process:

• The Rules and Policy stream which is making changes to the regulatory content and structure of the VPP;
• The Systems Stream which will make substantial changes to online planning information including a single point of entry to information, an online lodgement system for permits and planning scheme amendments, the content of planning schemes, and interactive state-wide maps. At this stage, this component will not include a single online centralised portal for all planning applications.

Under the Rules and Policy stream, the government envisages four stages in the process.

Stage 1 was the addition of further categories to VicSmart focusing on residential zones

Stage 2 will comprise a first package of further changes to VicSmart, and allegedly minor changes to the VPPs..

Stage 3 is intended to include a major restructure of the VPP and implemented in mid-2018.

Stage 4 will ‘further reshape the planning system’ in even more fundamental ways. under a program titled Transform.

Consultation

The property industry is an enthusiastic advocate for Smart Planning. The Property Council, for example, stated that the new system “is exactly what the doctor ordered…to cut red tape…and accelerate decision making”.

However, community groups have been locked out of the entire Smart Planning process.

Property and professional groups are represented on the technical reference and advisory groups for the program but not residents. The following groups are represented on the advisory group:

• Municipal Association of Victoria
• Australian Institute of Architects
• Building Designers Association of Victoria
• Housing Industry Association
• Master Builders Association of Victoria
• Planning Institute of Australia
• Property Council of Australia
• Urban Development Institute of Australia
• Victorian Planning and Environmental Law Association.

No members of relevant community groups of the public are represented on either the technical or the advisory group.

A Smart Planning presentation to industry organised by the Planning Institute on 31 October, proposed the following reasons for the exclusion of the public from consultation:

• Members of the public are incapable of understanding strategic planning
• Members of the public might initially object to changes to planning systems or specific developments but invariably ultimately accept them
• The large number of past reports into planning make further public consultation unnecessary.

A survey was released into potential VPP changes with a completion date of 10 July. Professionals made up most of the 688 respondents.

A discussion paper into broad proposals for Stage 1 changes was released on 16 October along with an online questionnaire with responses required by 24 November.

Stage 1 changes to VicSmart were introduced without the opportunity for public consultation in mid 2017.

Stage 2 changes will be presented to the minister and, if necessary, cabinet for approval in December for immediate adoption. This means that changes to the planning system will be immediately implemented without making the content of changes publicly available prior to adoption. The public will be presented with a fait accompli.

Stage 3 and 4 changes are expected to proceed in the same way as stage 2.

VicSmart changes

The government introduced a dual track approval system into Victorian planning with the enactment of the Planning and Environment Amendment (VicSmart Planning Assessment) Act in September 2012. Clauses 90–95 inserted into the VPP implement the VicSmart system. The Act establishes a different approval procedure for a separate class of applications but does not define this class or specify these applications. These are listed in clause 92 and initially comprised relatively minor and uncontroversial applications for various zones including subdivision to align a common boundary; construction of a fence, carport or garage; and construction of buildings and works of less than $50,000 in value not within 30 metres of a residential zone.

Clause 91 sets out the process for VicSmart applications. Applications must be processed within 10 business days and are exempt from notice, decision guidelines and review rights, policies or other provisions, although applicants may appeal a decision by the responsible authority; the responsible authority cannot request further information; authorities cannot act as referral authorities for comment on an application; environmental impacts cannot be considered; and councillors are excluded from decisions.

The government justified the introduction of a separate track by the need for a streamlined permit process aimed at ‘straightforward, low impact development proposals’, intended to ‘reduce frustration and unnecessary red tape for families wanting to make simple improvements to their homes’ and reduce ‘unnecessary delays and costs in Victoria's planning system’. However, the failure of the legislation to list the class of applications and conferring on the minister the power to develop and alter the list without further reference to parliament has allowed the progressive extension of the system by expanding the classes of applications. The then Shadow Minister for Planning, Brian Tee, commented in the parliamentary debate on the VicSmart Bill that ‘we all know that this legislation is much broader in its scope; the sky is the limit’.

The 2017 changes to VicSmart were introduced through Amendment VC137. This allowed extensions to dwellings in residential zones without a permit, and doubled the class of applications for buildings and works in a range of zones to $100,000.

These VicSmart changes have helped double VicSmart applications to 8 per cent. Further Stage 1 changes are expected to increase them to 14 per cent, ultimately rising possibly to one third of all applications. The 2016 budget estimates states that the Smart Planning program “will enable an extension to the VicSmart process, including the targeted removal of permit requirements in commercial and industrial zones, allowing faster approval times for certain development proposals….[its] proportion of planning permit applications will increase over time as reforms aimed at streamlining the planning system take hold”. It is likely that this process will reduce or remove existing rights to notice and appeal against classes of medium and high rise developments.

Stage 2 changes

Vicsmart will be integrated into particularly provisions and overlay schedules and other provisions. At present, VicSmart operates as a separate section at the end of planning schemes. Its integration into other provisions will entrench it structurally, providing codified assessments, uses and developments exempt from permits and applications exempt from notice or review. This integration will make further increases to VicSmart applications inevitable. A list of five new classes of applications is proposed at present.

Local and State planning policy will be integrated. Since local policy cannot contradict State policy, this will probably weaken local policy.

Streamlined assessment pathways will be provided by amending specific provisions to add building and works exemptions, reduce permitted applications by increasing ‘as-of-right’ uses and developments, and reduce the number of prohibited uses.

Drafting and procedural changes will be made.

Stage 3 and 4 changes

The discussion paper does not outline these. However, it is clear from the October 2017 discussion paper, Reforming the Victoria Planning Provisions, and other Smart Planning material, that radical changes to the planning system are envisaged under stages 3 and 4.

A revealing indicator of the government’s approach is the reference to the Leading Practice Model for Development Assessment prepared by the Development Assessment Forum in 2005. This influential model prepared by a body composed primarily of development and professional groups has been progressively implemented by all State governments to deregulate planning systems. The paper also refers to the use of code assessment and exemptions in New South Wales and Queensland systems. These are the most deregulated in Australia. Yet the government’s overall aim for Smart Planning is to “make Victoria’s planning system the most efficient and responsive in Australia”.

The government provides little detail of how radically the Stage 3 and 4 changes will further deregulate the planning system. However, the documentation provides a sense of what is envisaged. A progressive process of change is envisaged through “successive VPP and planning scheme amendments”. The program “seeks to deliver long term, transformative changes to the planning system”. The discussion paper proposes code assessment for multiple dwellings in defined locations, increasing code assessment to remove “entirely from the need for assessment” more applications, and applying VicSmart to complex applications. The Transform process would “further reshape the planning system” for the next 30 years.

Some proposed more detailed amendments to provisions include:

• Exempt single dwellings on lots above 300 square metres.
• Increase exempt uses in commercial and mixed use zones
• Make office an exempt use in the Industrial 3 zone.
• Increase exempt commercial uses in the Farming zone.
• Review the need for permits under all overlays and liberalise Floodway and Land Subject to Inundation overlays.
• Exempt car parking requirements in nominated zones
• Exempt premises in commercial zones from planning permits for licenced and gambling premises
• Further deregulate the Heritage Overlay by removing the need for permits for dry stone walls.
• Remove clause 57 providing greater control over uses and developments in green wedge land.
• Remove the powers of referral authorities
• Review the role of Section 173 agreements and decision guidelines.

Omissions

A simpler, more efficient and certain planning scheme is long overdue, but Smart Planning is not the way to provide it. This is a $25 million program managed through the Smart Planning program Rules team. If the system is simply to implement five minor changes, along with online access, then the program is a massive waste of money. Alternatively, if future stages are to radically change the system, then the government is hiding its intentions, locking out community groups from the process, and intends to present the public with a fait accompli.

The Smart Planning process addresses none of the major problems associated with the VPPs. These problems all arise from the lack of effective regulation, not the need for further deregulation. In particular

• The recent deregulation of the residential zones should be reversed
• Height controls should be added to the commercial and mixed use zones to protect historic strip and local retail centres
• The extensive out-of-centre development allowed in commercial zones, which allows further unfair competition with traditional centres and entrenches car based centres, should be controlled.
• The few prohibited uses in commercial and mixed use zones should be expanded
• Greater heritage protection should be provided to historic industrial areas to require building reuse not demolition.
• The former rural zones should be reinstated
• Commercial uses should be prohibited in Green Wedge zones and all uses not listed in section 2 prohibited.
• Vague and contradictory decision guidelines and objectives should be rewritten in a clear, regulatory manner.
• The widespread inadequate application of standard provisions to land by local councils should be addressed to better match provisions to local conditions and need.

* About Michael Buxton

Michael Buxton is Professor of Environment and Planning at RMIT University and former head of the RMIT planning program. He spent 12 years in senior management in planning and environmental agencies in the Victorian Government and has written widely on urban form, peri-urban development and environmental policy.

Responding to "Plan Melbourne 2017-2050" and changes to the Planning Scheme which will transfer government powers to private developers, Planning Backlash will rally on the steps of Parliament on 8 June 2017 at 1pm.

RESTORE RESIDENTS' RIGHTS

‘PLAN MELBOURNE 2017-2050’ AND PLANNING SCHEME CHANGES WILL FURTHER REMOVE RESIDENTS RIGHTS.

Rally on the steps of Parliament 8th June at 1 pm.

We demand that residents’ rights are restored and that Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 is amended accordingly.

Not only does this latest ‘Plan Melbourne’ remove more of our rights, the protection provided by the residential zones has been dramatically reduced and 70% of all new development will be forced into our established suburbs. Also multi-storey apartments in your local street will be encouraged with no objections allowed.

Professor Michael Buxton (School of Global, Urban & Social Studies, RMIT) will be the main presenter along with other prominent speakers.

Your’s and your members’ presence will help us to get our rights restored and changes made to protect our homes.

Authorized by Mary Drost, Convenor of PLANNING BACKLASH INC. registered under the Associations Incorporation Act . Planning Backlash is a coalition of over 250 resident andcommunity groups from across Melbourne as well as country and coastal areas of Victoria. PO Box 1034 Camberwell 3124

Candobetter.net Editor: The following document will be handed out at the rally. Please read it, talk it and send it everywhere:

Residents' Bill of Rights

We, the current residents of Melbourne, country and coastal areas of Victoria, call on the government and opposition at all levels to act to protect our homes, communities and cities from over-development.

WE REJECT:

The current trend of excessive population growth through the ever increasing levels of immigration.
The excessive influence of vested interests and lobby groups upon residential planning and government decision making.
The increasing densification of residential areas and the consequent impact on our infrastructure without commensurate infrastructure upgrades at all levels.
The continual changes to planning law and regulations that provides no certainty for the peaceful enjoyment of our neighbourhoods by the current and future residents.
The continual urban sprawl into Melbourne’s green fringe and farming land.

We DEMAND:

• Population growth targets to be limited to sustainable levels based on OECD averages which is currently around 0.63%. (Australia’s rate of growth is currently around 1.7% ).

• Infrastructure be upgraded to meet current needs and kept ahead of requirements to meet our cities population growth requirements.

• A bipartisan planning environment that provides certainty and protects residential areas against densification in any form.

• Councils to be the sole “responsible Authority” for issuing planning permits and building permits.

• VCAT’s role to be confined to resolution of legal planning disputes and ensuring that lawful planning regulations are met.

• FIRB rules and penalties designed and strictly applied to prevent destruction of existing housing stock and neighbourhood character by foreign nationals.

• Expansion and development of regional cities and associated infrastructure to support population growth and lifestyle quality.

• Developer donations be deemed illegal with mandatory disqualification, forfeiture, or dismissal from or of any current or future development.

• Protection of current open space and tree canopy with requirement to retain or replace vegetation on all new or redevelopment sites.

• Government, at all levels, legally required to assess and protect the interests of residents ahead of developers’ interests.

• All planning committees and reference groups must have at reasonable resident representation.

• Legislate to ensure permits can be refused where a poll of residents/owners living within 300m radius of the proposed development indicates objection by the majority of existing residents/owners.

• A national uniform code be developed to define minimum dwelling size, minimum open space per bedroom and maximum occupancy limits.

• Enforceable minimum Victorian building standards regulations administered by an independent authority.

• Any breach of a planning permit or building standards should result in a prosecution by the relevant authority or the State or local Government to ensure proper rectification

• Developers to meet infrastructure costs necessary for new developments including drainage, sewage, water supply, telecommunications, gas and electricity.

• Developers to be required to contribute to a general community/Council infrastructure fund, , based on number of bedrooms or estimated improved value of the property.

• Neighbourhood character, architecture and heritage requirements to be met by every new residential development.

• Establishment and enforcement of resident and visitor car parking standards, for new multi-dwelling developments, at the rate of 0.75 spaces per bedroom, for residents and 0.25 spaces for visitors.

• Character protection for heritage and traditional local shopping strips.

[This bill was] Published & authorized by PLANNING BACKLASH, on behalf of it’s 250
supporting residents' groups in Melbourne, country & coastal areas.
PO Box 1034 Camberwell, Vic. 3124

Saturday 4 July 2015, First Annual General Meeting: Guest Speaker is Professor Michael Buxton of the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University is a leading urban planning expert and will speak on “Melbourne Towards Eight Million: Are Skyscrapers the answer?”

Time:
1.45pm for a 2.00pm start. Stay for afternoon tea after meeting scheduled to close around 4.00pm.
Venue:
Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt. Alexander Road, Flemington. Centre on Debneys Park.
Transport:
Tram along Flemington Road and Mt. Alexander Road;
Train station - Upfield Line - nearby; Capital City Trail
for cyclists next to Centre; carparking at front door
of Centre (drive in from Mt. Alexander Road.) Mel-
ways Map Reference 29 B12.

Premier Denis Napthine and Planning Minister Matthew Guy, on Wednesday 9th October, launched the much anticipated planning and transport blueprint, Plan Melbourne, which according to the press release, will shape how Melbournians live and work over the next 40 years.

Despite many worthy motherhood statements of intent in the document, the blueprint will largely be determined by the development industry and property interests, rather than residents. It ignores the fact that hospitals, schools, public transport, roads are already stretched to the limit. The "jobs" is about ramping up opportunities for property developers, and the mortgage industries.

As part of the strategy to be announced by Premier Denis Napthine and Minister for Planning Matthew Guy, the towns of Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, Broadford, Kilmore, Warragul-Drouin and Wonthaggi are designated as new major population and employment towns for growth.

Any balanced sense of professional and holistic planning is being discarded to fast-track high density suburbs, to promote growth.

"With Victoria?s population projected to rise to 8.4 million by 2050, regional cities and towns are well-placed to take a greater share of population growth. A key initiative of Plan Melbourne is to unlock the growth potential of these cities – so they can accommodate a
greater proportion of the state?s future growth – and provide good transport connections between them and Melbourne. This will create a 'State of Cities' where there are greater choices for people about where to live, work or start a business,” Mr Guy said.

The more houses and apartments are built, the more the growth will continue. It's self-fulfilling prophesy! Residents in growth areas will be denied the right to object to multi-storey developments in their area. This is about "streamlining" permits for property developers, and fast-tracking growth!

"Victoria's population has increased by 15 per cent in the last decade, but 86 per cent of this growth has occurred in Melbourne. Under Plan Melbourne, by providing opportunities for decentralized population and employment growth in regional cities, we can increase their size and ability to function independently. We're providing Victorians with more choices about where they live and work.”

One million additional homes will be needed in Melbourne by 2050 when the population is expected to reach 6.5 million.

Several key infrastructure projects also form part of the plan, including East West Link, the Melbourne Metro Rail project and the north east link, which will connect the Metropolitan Ring Road and Eastlink.

Planning academic Michael Buxton, professor of Planning at RMIT, commented that the document fails to deliver on major issues facing a rapidly growing Melbourne including, with no allocated spending on necessary public transport infrastructure to deal with outer urban growth corridors. He also notes urban growth boundaries have already been expanded by 43,000 ha.

This 40 year plan is not a grass-roots one, with democratic input, created with long-term considerations of costs, of jobs growth failing to keep abreast with population growth, the loss of soils and biodiversity, entrenched debts, the multiplying demand on natural resources such our forests, and the cost of utilities such as water and power. The 13 year drought Victoria suffered is lost in political memory! There's no concession to climate change, and the fact that more people will need to rely on air-conditioning and power, as inevitable in high density housing.

The "new" Plan Melbourne strategy aims to curb the city’s suburban sprawl by establishing a permanent metropolitan urban boundary and distributing future population growth to other regions. How many times have we heard this? The urban boundary is nothing more than an imaginary, fictional line that keeps expanding with Melbourne's population obesity!

Shifting population growth to regional towns is simply diverting Melbourne's growth problems, but not solving it. It will mean they share more of our woes, including infrastructure overload, increasing costs of living and spreading unaffordable housing.

Since the beginning of 2000, the city’s population grew by a whopping 27%, or more than 900,000 people. If growth continues at that pace – 2% per annum – then Melbourne’s population would surpass 5 million by 2025, overtake Sydney by 2037, and hit 8 million by 2049.

Why should Melbourne's population, hurtling towards more than 8.5 million by 2050, be considered inevitable? As a consequence, we must deregulate and streamline planning to accommodate it!

Other State and Federal government policies are criticized, dissected, evaluated, supported or rejected - as is our democratic right. When it comes to our politically-engineered population growth, why is it a taboo subject?

The ABS reveals that natural increase and net overseas migration contributed 40% and 60% respectively to Australia's total population growth for the year ended 31 March 2013. It's politically-engineered growth, and assumed as natural, inevitable, desirable, achievable, affordable or sustainable. Nothing about the environment is mentioned, or the native vegetation and agricultural land that will be buried under housing!

With little innovation, imagination, strengthening of education and skills-training, and research into future-proofing our energy sources and mitigating against climate change, "growth" has become an economic industry itself! It's one that must keep being perpetuated. despite the fact that we are hurdling towards the multiple "challenges" of mid-21st century. This is head-in-the-sand mentality of "growth is good" and "business as usual".

"Both the process and the discussion paper are undirected, unsatisfactory and of little help to anyone or anything. Nothing so inadequate has ever been seen in the history of Melbourne strategic planning."... "The paper generally avoids any discussion of how to intensify established areas while not destroying amenity, or even whether it is possible to achieve both objectives. It does not discuss in detail the major options for intensification, mentioning only briefly the capacity to redevelop large brownfield sites, and arguing that medium and higher density residential development should not be regarded as a problem. It states that “there are different ways of increasing housing density without undermining the valued characteristics of local areas” – what are these and why would they not destroy valued amenity?"(Michael Buxton, Professor Environment and Planning, at PPLVic AGM on Saturday 23 February 2013.

Michael Buxton
Professor Environment and Planning, RMIT University

Context

Link to videoed speech here.

The process of developing a new Melbourne metropolitan strategy, and the discussion paper prepared by a ministerial advisory committee, are deeply flawed. The discussion paper seeks ‘to help generate debate and discussion about the future of our city”. But the process is neither properly participatory nor informative. The discussion paper does not canvass well supported and evaluated options. No detail is provided on how public comment will contribute to the development of policy. In short, both the process and the discussion paper are undirected, unsatisfactory and of little help to anyone or anything. Nothing so inadequate has ever been seen in the history of Melbourne strategic planning.

Some earlier plans for Melbourne have involved years of research and investigation, and the modeling of options. The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) strategic planning was exemplary for investigation and consideration of options, particularly the 1954 and 1971 plans. Later planning, such as by the Cain government for the 1987 plan and the Kirner government in the early 1990s, considered a range of options for the future of Melbourne and associated strategic issues. Seven major reports into such subjects as activity centres, sustainability and environmental issues were commissioned during the preparation of Melbourne 2030 and informed the final plan. No additional research or investigations lie behind the new strategy process other than normal government activity, such as Victoria In Future and the Urban Development Program.

Metropolitan strategic planning should be long term and bipartisan, and accepted by key interest groups and citizens. This will be the sixth strategic plan for Melbourne in 25 years, together with a number of other minor plans. A plan on average about every four years does not provide for either certainty or continuity. There is little sense of what the government has in mind for the future of Melbourne, how this relates to previous planning and what this means for the future of the city.

The consultation process has been inadequate. Another weakness in the process is the government preempting major strategic initiatives by prior policy and statutory decisions. This continues the approach of the former Kennett government to metropolitan strategic planning. Kennett and his planning minister, Robert Maclellan, had no use for strategic land use planning and did none. Their metropolitan plan, Living Suburbs, was little more than a promotional document. The real planning lay in the statutory changes to planning schemes which implemented their ideology of development facilitation as part of deregulated governance.

The Baillieu government through its planning minister, Matthew Guy, is following a similar approach. Guy has introduced new planning zones which further deregulate planning rendering strategic metropolitan planning obsolete. For example, the new Melbourne strategic plan cannot include a retail policy which restricts out-of-centre development because the new zones will allow it, much as-of-right. A new plan cannot limit Melbourne’s outer urban growth because governments have provided 30 years land supply on the urban fringe. Baillieu and Guy supported the former Labor government’s abandonment of the urban growth boundary as a major strategic tool and then in government expanded the area of Melbourne by a further 6,000 hectares. Clearly, the metropolitan strategy can say nothing meaningful about restricting outer urban growth.

All this means that the new metropolitan strategy must avoid most of the key strategic issues affecting the future of Melbourne. So far there has been little left to discuss in the discussion paper except for a series of general principles (‘globally connected and competitive city’), truisms most people would accept (‘fostering strong communities’), and platitudes (‘a 20 minute city’). It remains to be seen whether the strategy itself can actually develop a strategic direction with meaningful implementation tools. The signs so far are not promising. The strategy would have to improve markedly on the discussion paper. The choice is for it to either make clear the de-facto planning policy of government or convince the government to abandon its direction. The first option is unlikely – the government does not want its direction blandly spelt out or the people will know what it is really up to. The second would seem impossible.

Strategic approach

The discussion paper outlines its objectives through five principles, what needs to change in two principles, and implementation in two more. Overall, there is no clearly stated vision. Long term intention is fundamental to strategic planning. An acceptance of growth is implied through the statement that planning needs to be for a city of up to 6.4 million people by 2050. The paper advocates alternatives to business-as-usual activity, but such growth is business-as-usual. It rejects the use of land use planning as a tool to achieve change, arguing against intervention through the planning system to achieve alternative future scenarios: “The Metropolitan Planning Strategy must move away from regulation as the primary means of achieving planning outcomes”, it argues. This diminution of government leaves decisions to developers and other private interest groups such as large retailers who will act primarily in their own interests. This concept of the role of government fatally handicaps a future strategic plan. Only government can plan strategically in the public interest.

Networks to regional cities are canvassed but no detail is provided about how this concept might be achieved and how regional development could lower the projected size of Melbourne. How much growth should be transferred to regions; should it be concentrated in large regional centres or some located in smaller regional towns along fast rail routes? There is no discussion of the necessary links between regional growth, access, amenity, types of regional employment, education, improved infrastructure and other services. Regional manufacturing, for example, is declining while Geelong and Ballarat are embarking on their own versions of urban sprawl in standard single use suburbs far from town centres.

The paper argues for a ‘polycentric city’. Shifts in urban strategy have become more common in recent years from the centre-periphery model focused primarily on reinforcing a CBD, to networked metropolitan connections to regional settlements. However, it is crucial to define the polycentric approach proposed, and the functional connections between networked urban areas. The discussion paper’s notion of a multi-centred city seems to include the CBD, a limited number of activity centres, a few innovation clusters and the whole of inner Melbourne. This notion is unhelpful and confused. The opportunity was available to the discussion paper to remove confusion about multi-centred activity centre policy. MMBW district centre policy concentrated on a limited number of activity centres. Melbourne 2030 made every large or small centre an activity centre. However, the discussion paper does not adequately analyse the notion of polycentrism, wants a limited number of centres but defines a large differentiated part of Melbourne (the inner suburbs) as one centre and allows a multitude of local activity centres to be developed. The inner suburbs include most advanced business service and professional jobs and employee residences and contain a large number of activity centres. To talk of the inner suburbs as one element in a polycentric city makes polycentrism meaningless. The paper suggests that many local mixed use activity centres should be developed but some of these already contain important concentrations of employment, retailing and housing. No suggestion is provided on the size of proposed clusters, what would happen in each, or when local activity centres might transform to major ones. The three examples given of polycentric innovation clusters, Monash-Clayton, Melbourne Airport and Parkville biosciences precinct vary significantly from each other. Only Parkville has reasonable public transport facilities. Melbourne Airport is a large out-of-centre retailing precinct and is an undesirable location for such retailing. Similarly, large freight and logistics clusters are located along fringe metropolitan freeways, a similarly undesirable trend.

The paper is silent on the destructive impacts of out-of-centre retail development on existing strip centres and other impacts such as on traffic. Any comments by the discussion paper on this issue are irrelevant in any case because the real policy and power is in the new commercial zones which will lead to extensive out-of-centre retailing and commercial uses and accelerate the destruction of strip retail centres. The paper does not properly analyze the differences between elements of what it advocates leaving a confused mess.

Global connectivity sounds attractive but what in practice does the advisory committee believe it means? The discussion paper is little help here, repeating usual mantras of links to a global knowledge economy without analyzing possible future trends and alternatives. It is likely that this century the cities which relate satisfactorily to their hinterlands will survive best. This notion is largely ignored. Lip service is paid to the importance of peri-urban diversity and agricultural production but nothing is said about how these assets can help position Melbourne to survive. By 2050 most peri-urban agriculture will have disappeared on current trends. A metropolitan strategy should state clearly an alternative pathway to business-as-usual trends to achieve desirable alternative scenarios. But there is no consistent vision of the future for the Melbourne green belt. The paper mentions its importance as a food bowl, but then adopts the Tourism agency dogma that existing zones prevent tourism development. The Baillieu government appears set to emasculate native vegetation protection controls. The paper contains no endorsement of the need to prevent such major changes to policy.

Its discussion about urban form is another unsatisfactory element of the paper. Melbourne 2030 attempted to shift a large proportion of planned outer urban growth to the established metropolitan area through the use of an urban growth boundary. It proposed government intervention to achieve a desired future end. The discussion paper canvasses no such options. It is marked by an absence of discussion on the major pressure points of the inner city, activity centres and outer growth areas. It is reticent on the problems arising from Melbourne’s continuing sprawl in single use, poorly serviced suburbs and on the need for improved urban design there. It says nothing about the need for much higher average densities in outer urban areas, higher densities around new town centres, and a mix of lot and house types. The paper farcically states that the “green edge” of Melbourne should be strengthened but ignores the spoiling effects of a 30 year supply of outer urban residential land on proper planning through prior expansions of the growth boundary. There is no discussion of the reduction of this land bank in the context of an overall strategy for the city.

In discussing a distinctive Melbourne the paper says little about amenity and nothing about the importance of heritage as a crucial factor in the identity of citizens and as an economic asset. Heritage means money – destroy it and Melbourne’s greatest asset is lost. The paper generally avoids any discussion of how to intensify established areas while not destroying amenity, or even whether it is possible to achieve both objectives. It does not discuss in detail the major options for intensification, mentioning only briefly the capacity to redevelop large brownfield sites, and arguing that medium and higher density residential development should not be regarded as a problem. It states that “there are different ways of increasing housing density without undermining the valued characteristics of local areas” – what are these and why would they not destroy valued amenity?

The paper also is another lost opportunity to raise and discuss seriously social issues associated with inequity, particularly unequal access to services, and a crucial range of housing issues including affordable housing. Simply put, the discussion on these topics is more of the same avoidance that has characterised decades of policy discussion by government.

What is left?

Avoiding the major metropolitan strategic issues leaves only a series of five general principles and some trite proposals. The principles are; a distinctive Melbourne; a globally connected and competitive city, social and economic participation; strong communities; and environmental resilience. None are applied to detailed discussion or practical concerns drawing out issues, options and conclusions for elements in a functionally connected urban system. The principles are not related satisfactorily to each other. There is no sense of integration of ideas around a unifying vision for the future of Melbourne, just a grab-bag of ideas gleaned from somewhere and placed in little more than a list. Argument, substantiation and examination of evidence are all lacking. A metropolitan strategic discussion paper should place evidence, information and argued positions before people, canvass well considered options and propose an integrated strategic approach for the future. It should link spatial concerns to other sectoral ones. A brief mention is made of the need to integrate land use and transport planning – this too is a mantra which has hardly affected practice in recent years. There is almost no discussion of cross-sectoral policy and integrated institutional and governance arrangements.

Then there are the unexamined proposals. Perhaps the most trite is the proposal for a 20 minute city. Has a less useful proposal ever been put forward as a serious contribution to policy? This is a substitute for policy, what is left when all the effective decisions about the future of Melbourne are made outside the ambit of strategy, leaving only a shell with a brittle crust.

Speech given at Protectors of Public Land Vic (Inc). AGM on Saturday 23 February 2013. Thanks to Secretary and chief dynamo, Julianne Bell, for providing this text and organising the meeting.

"I am just amazed at the breadth and the depth of interest and knowledge about planning in groups like this, so I don't understand - given that - how the government gets away with what it does."(Prof. Michael Buxton)

Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne - Con Job or for Real?

In contrast to the arrogant demeanor of the panel at the Wheeler Center (described at "We REALLY need to talk about Melbourne Planning ..."), Michael Buxton addressed an audience of activists and concerned public from Defenders of Public Lands Victoria and stated:

"Looking at some of the faces here, lots of you know a lot about the Metropolitan Strategy as it exists, and have done lots of work in planning. So I am just amazed at the breadth and the depth of interest and knowledge about planning in groups like this, so I don't understand - given that - how the government gets away with what it does. There is kind of something wrong in the way we all collaborate and mobilize, and I don't know how to get around that because the development community is brilliant at getting around it. It has its paid 'peak groups', like the Property Council, the Urban Development Institute. And they lobby and they walk into the Premier's office - and you all go and do it, you know, going up to Canberra in your own time - it's so much harder for you. But, somehow, keep at it, because it's incredibly important."

Signs of Growth Lobby infiltration in audience at this meeting?

At this otherwise excellent meeting, conducted by courageous members of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., it seemed that pro-development people may have secreted themselves in the audience to quell attempts to address the problem of the Victorian Government's promotion of high immigration by making it sound as if talking about immigration numbers was somehow indecent. It isn't. The government, the mainstream media, and the property development lobby never stop talking about it. It is out there in the public domain. It is core political business. Two people seem to have led this muzzling from the audience, which, sadly, appeared to be successfully intimidated or confused as to what was wanted of them.

There could be another explanation as well - that people have become confused by ambiguous media coverage of Dutch MP Geert Wilders' visit and now fear that criticism of any immigration will stigmatize them. The Growth Lobby, which owns and runs Australian public and commercial media, is easily able to ensure that coverage of such events benefits their cause. The aim is to restigmatize criticism of high immigration numbers by confusing it with criticism about ethnicity. This needs to be sorted out, pronto.

How come business, media and government can rabbit on continuously about immigration but 'we' can't?

As Michael Buxton says in his videoed speech (cited above), "there seems to be something wrong in the way we collaborate and organize." What is glaringly wrong is that the growth lobby members, including the government, the mainstream media, and the property development lobby, all talk non-stop about immigration and population growth but still manage to make enough citizens feel that they have no right to do so, thus totally undermining every effort to stop overpopulation and overdevelopment. There is something very wrong when planning activist groups fail to support each other's leaders, simply caving into intimidation by faceless infiltrators. Factionalisation of planning activist groups, with some cliques doing deals with government and purporting to represent the wider majority, whilst selling others down the river, is just what the government and the developer groups want. Our environment and democracy is too important to be sacrificed for narrow political ambition.

Resolution Re Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne (MPSM)

At the Annual General Meeting of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. held on 23 February 2013 at the Flemington Community Centre in Flemington the Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne (MPSM) was considered and discussed. It was moved that the resolution of this meeting be sent as a submission to the Planning Minister and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on MPSM. Here is the resolution:

Motions:

That this meeting considers that:
1. The Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Melbourne should concentrate on maintaining and enhancing Melbourne’s liveability and sustainability, emphasizing the need to control carbon emissions, to provide for the effects of climate change, and to plan for peak oil and food security, acknowledging that social and economic well-being depend on a sustainable environment.
2. To maintain and enhance Melbourne’s livability and sustainability the following highly valued but threatened assets need better protection and expansion/enhancement:
• Public open spaces, parks, gardens
• Green wedges, including open space for environmental conservation, agriculture and recreation
• Our residential streets and suburbs
• Heritage
• Natural environment and biodiversity, urban parks and reserves, nature strips and private gardens
• Recreation and other community facilities
• Shopping centres (which are threatened by proposals to allow supermarkets in commercial and industrial centres);
3. More - and more mandatory - not less, regulation of developers is needed. (The Advisory Committee has suggested we should “move away from regulation” as the primary means of achieving planning outcomes, but we are concerned that this will disempower communities and Councils.);
4. Urban sprawl needs to be curbed with no more development in the growth corridors until adequate infrastructure is provided to service existing and proposed outer suburbs: developers should pay for infrastructure;
5. Infrastructure planning and provision should focus on improving public transport, particularly rail projects, including the lines to Rowville, Doncaster, Tullamarine and Epping and not on freeways such as the East-West Link freeway/tollway;
6. Melbourne’s green edge should be strengthened by:
• Protecting the green wedges for non-urban uses including parkland, environmental conservation and biodiversity, agriculture, recreation, open space, landscape and heritage values
• A clearly defined, permanent Urban Growth Boundary that makes clear where urban Melbourne ends and rural areas begin
• Retention of S. 173 agreements to allow Council to curb future subdivision and inappropriate uses;
7. More rigorous governance provisions are needed to prevent vested interests taking priority over the best interests of the community, including more weight to local planning schemes and a ban on political donations from developers;
8. The Planning Zones Review should be extended to allow adequate time for community consultation and for consideration to be given to curbing current discretionary uses that have been used as loopholes to allow inappropriate uses into green wedges and other zones; and
9. Protectors of Public Lands (Vic) is authorised by the meeting to write to the Minister for Planning and to the Advisory Committee for the MPSM conveying the resolution.

Moved: Rosemary West, Green Wedges Coalition (GWC)
Seconded: Julianne Bell. Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (PPL VIC)

Resolution carried unanimously after a several amendments were made.