Overbudget…Overtime….Underdeveloped.. Unstoppable
Dear Supporter/Concerned Community Member,
The State Government’s Planning and Design Code has staggered into its final phase. Its last sham ‘consultation’ period will conclude on 18th December, because the State Planning Commission (SPC) had instructed the Planning Minister Vickie Chapman that it ‘wants resolution of that process’ by Christmas.
For her part, the Minister anticipates Code implementation ‘early next year, at some stage’ (whatever that means) and she wants it to be ‘done and dusted by June 2021’.
The current truncated sop to community consultation has been predictably underwhelming. Nine planned ‘drop-in’ sessions have been cancelled for lack of interest and three regional planning sessions have been abandoned. These revelations came from the Planning Minister and her staff under questioning by Labor Shadow Minister Jayne Stinson at the parliamentary Budget Estimates Committee on 23rd November 2020.
For the first time, we also heard what we are paying for the privilege of having future planning for our built and natural environment distorted and turned on its head by the new system. The original budget for the Code was $25.8 million set by the then Minister John Rau in 2016. It is now $43.6 million, comprising $27.6 million for capital costs, and $16.0 million for operating expenses.
In order to meet this 100% budget blowout, the Planning Department, through successive Ministers, has plundered $25.5 million from the supposedly quarantined Planning and Development (Open Space) Fund. This Fund was established to enhance our environment by mitigating the damaging effects of the crowded development it is now paradoxically supporting in the Code.
This short changing of our community amenity is compounded by the de-funding of Councils through an annual levy of up to $50,000 to support the Code e-planning platform and by the centralised diversion of planning application fees.
The key role of the SPC in this sorry saga is characterised by an out-of-control, but cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy which seems to have bypassed community aspirations and government scrutiny.
The inordinate influence of the SPC on planning policy and process is tainted by concerns about its structure and function. Three of its four members have links to the development industry.
Understandably, there is an inherent public perception of conflict of interest in a system where developers dictate and monitor planning policy with such widespread implications for the lives of all South Australians. This perception is validated by the 41 instances of declared conflicts of interest by SPC members in 64 meetings to June 2020.
The transparency and accountability of the SPC must also be questioned when its agenda items are analysed. In a total of 182 items, 90 or 50% were designated confidential, and for the current year, presumably when the Commission became more sensitive to public concerns, this figure rose to 63%. Indeed, in the last meeting on 12th November, six of the seven agenda items were confidential.
Whilst it is possible that the majority of the SPC business is commercially confidential, if this is the case, it raises questions about the emphasis on private development and commercial interests in the planning system, at the expense of the rights of the community at large.
The governance of the SPC and the State Commission Assessment Panel (SCAP), along with the future of the Planning and Design Code, and its impending impact on the electorate, are issues that the Labor Opposition must address if it wishes to establish a credible position in the lead up to the March 2022 Election.
The damaging effects of the implementation of a still flawed Code on heritage, trees, local planning and development and lived amenity across the State, but particularly in metropolitan Adelaide, will escalate in the electorate over the next eighteen months. Labor must now recognise and respond to this important issue.
I urge you to write to members of the Opposition and cross bench to ask them to stand up for the community and the integrity of the planning system and insist on a rethink of the Planning and Design Code.
Warren Jones AO
TIME FOR LABOR TO STAND UP FOR THE COMMUNITY
Please write to Labor and cross bench MPs and ask them to stand up for the community to stop the Planning and Design Code being forced on metropolitan Adelaide before it is ready and the public has fully understood what is at risk.
Download a list of State MP contacts
Professor Warren Jones AO is the Convenor of the Protect our Heritage Alliance, a coalition of concerned organisations and individuals, working to protect our built and natural environment. GPO Box 2021 Adelaide, SA 5001
Phone: 0419 852 622
Email: convenor@protectourheritage.org.au
http://www.protectourheritage.org.au
Facebook: protectourheritageSA
