By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities. Socrates, 4^thC BC.

The old saw is that councils control ‘rates, roads, and rubbish’.

Architects have a different running sore: Council planning, or rather the lack of it.

Architects readily give Councils a fail. Recipients of, rather than participants in, the planning process, we say that Councils require over-documentation, are inconsistent, take too long, don't follow their own rules and, in the end, a refusal means an appeal to a higher authority.

It’s not about hurt professional pride. The slow process has two terrible consequences for the housing crisis: it limits developments, particularly infill projects in the ‘missing middle’; and the demands and time delays add extra costs to projects unnecessarily. Can council’s planning process be fixed?

There are two kinds of urban planning: strategic planning make plans for the Local Government Area (LGA); and assessment, which assesses applications for approval or refusal against that strategic plan. Both have problems. Strategic this week, assessment next week.

Big picture urban planning is patchy in Australia.

We either have too few strategic planners, or too many Councils. Or both.

Too few strategic planners

Why? It’s complicated, but in essence the profession endures very low satisfaction. The too-few professionals in each Council are isolated as they face two adversaries: their ‘bosses’ are amateur politicians, often elected on a platform to STOP things happening; and the property development industry intent on TOO MUCH, to maximise profits, not better cities. Sometimes, you get both on the one council.

Cities need holistic masterplans, requiring a critical mass of strategic planners, which is why every state government maintains a planning department and often a department of local government, trying to stitch some sensible coordination into the capital city. The fights between tier two state and tier three council are more bitter than the AFL or NRL. And the council’s strategic urban planners bear the brunt.

Just last week, NSW Premier Minns closed the Greater Cities Commission and moved the 300+ staff into the Department of Planning, where hopefully their admirable sentiments, but ineffectual actions, will yield better results.

Too many Councils

Councils were formed as the second tier of government when we were individual states. In the 19^thC, they made sense: each area was a self-contained village unto itself; you would need a day to traverse the area by horse on foot; and all your needs were within that circumference.

The tortuous wrangling to make a federation left no room to re-think the need for a third tier, and so the small councils persisted into the 20^thC, even when the car made planning explode and all the precepts for local councils disappeared. Still they persisted, nay flourished.

Of the 537 Councils in Australia, 51 are in ‘Greater’ Sydney, 31 in Metro Melbourne, 19 in Adelaide and 38 in Perth Metro. Only Brisbane of the big five has a single council, as have the next biggest cities of Newcastle and Canberra. Hell, there are six LGAs in Hobart and five in Darwin. No wonder many argue that Australia is over governed.

As the third tier of government, Council’s elected officials are the least experienced, the most amateurish and the least remunerated. They are the incubator for politicians with aims for higher office in state or federal politics. They make all the right noises about the locals, but their view is over the horizon to greener pastures. It’s aspirational. Mayor, member, minister.

There are two results: the planning across the city is a discontinuous patchwork, and each fiefdom acts independently, inhibiting growth, both in planning and in reality.

We need council amalgamations in our cities. Just four councils look after the whole of Southeast Queensland and my personal experience is of processes that are better strategically and far more transparent in assessment. And the results seem better, certainly no poorer. The same area / population in Sydney or Melbourne would have about 15 councils.

The rubbish and road repairs are no different in Ryde than Rockdale. Likewise the strategic planning issues, but you wouldn’t know it given the different rules and regulations. The two sides of King Street, a main thoroughfare in Newtown, have remarkably different in uses and urban design because they are in different Council areas (Inner West and City of Sydney). More sensible planning would be better if the road ran through the centre of an amalgamated Council. But Inner West is a hotbed of an irrational backlash against amalgamations in NSW, so less not more is likely.

In conclusion

Can we expect a change in attitude from local politicians to strategic urban planners? Yeah, Nah. Can we expect any more amalgamations to improve efficiency? Yeah, Nah. So can we expect a change to the thin spread of strategic urban planners amongst too many councils? Yeah, Nah.

Will it get any better next week when we look at planning assessments?

Reference: Tone on Tuesday 169: Fixing council planning - part one: strategic.

Published Architecture & Design, 3 July (week 27) 2023

Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his.

Short pieces are published every Friday in A&D Another Thing.

Longer columns are Tone on Tuesday, published then.

You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com

Tone Wheeler

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