MEDIA RELEASE 22.5.08
Removing Council planning powers – unnecessary, undemocratic and open to corruption!
Yesterday’s announcement by Planning Minister Justin Madden to strip councils of planning power for major activity centre development again shows the State Government’s contempt for the community. It is yet another example of trying to make things easy for developers without regard to planning outcomes or the concerns of the whole community. If the Planning Minister was really trying to streamline the planning process, he could simply make key planning guidelines mandatory (Rescode, Structure plans etc) which would vastly speed up the planning assessment process – any non-compliant applications would be rejected and the others would be easier to tick off. This would also greatly diminish the number of cases going to VCAT and provide what all parties want – greater certainty.
Instead, his plan to ‘speed up’ the granting of permits via "development assessment committees" (DACs) removes the rights of democratically-elected councils by establishing yet another unelected body not subject to review to make planning decisions. The Government misleadingly implies that DAC decisions will still be appealable (the same as for a council decision) but under the proposed new residential zones for high-density ("go-go") areas, most existing rights of notice and review will be removed. The problems presented by the DAC model are exacerbated by the lack of an Independent Commission Against Corruption in Victoria, with the very real risk of corruption in un-elected panels that would exercise discretion in assessing development applications without any public accountability. And while the State Government is keen to blame planning problems on Councils, it hasn’t even acknowledged – let alone addressed – its own poor performance in planning matters, as identified in the recent Auditor-Generals report and in the ‘audit’ of Melbourne 2030. Ian Quick President Save Our Suburbs (Vic)