What’s missing is any future vision for the sustainable development of Melbourne. And in the words of the Municipal Association of Victoria, “the draft fails to acknowledge and strengthen local government’s roles in planning, creates risk and uncertainty for local government…”
SOS submission concludes that:-
The philosophical approach to this Draft has clearly been to “streamline” (deregulate) planning processes under the Act.
The timing of the review of the Act is unfortunate, coinciding as it does with the impact of severe bushfire and an economic recession. These appear to have influenced the focus of the review, while other more serious long-term crises such as climate change and peak oil have had less obvious influence. However, the new Act must be based on a sound ESD footing to be able to tackle the environmental challenges of the next few decades.
In a democracy (as opposed to an enlightened dictatorship) any area that is
underperforming needs tighter, more specific or more appropriate legislation, not a more hands-off approach. This has already been evident from the failure of the Melbourne 2030 policy to achieve its aim of focusing most new medium and higher density housing into activity centres, protecting most of the suburban hinterland and obviating the need for further suburban sprawl.
Industry and commerce will not produce the necessary vision and drive in the public interest when society is facing the need for urgent changes in land use patterns in order to respond to major challenges like climate change, peak oil, lack of affordable housing and inadequate well-integrated public transport.
In general, the Draft fails to identify or address any future sustainable vision for the state, yet proposes to undemocratically streamline or deregulate key authorization and approval processes. It also fails to address most of the existing loopholes and weaknesses in the Act, many of which we highlighted in our initial submission.
Click on the attachment to read the entire submission