Complexities of town planning a major hurdle for developers

All those at the WA Business News coastal development forum agreed that the inadequacies of the town planning system presented the main hurdles to coastal development.

Some went so far as to claim the system was outdated, easily railroaded, and lacked focus on wider contexts.

Multiplex development manager Charlie Robertson said the planning schemes did not allow for any discretion for the most part for councils to make objective decisions.

“They are overly prescriptive and I think that they are pretty much designed to regulate development that was occurring 40 to 50 years ago in terms of the suburban quarter acre block and housing development on those sorts of lots,” he said.

“It certainly doesn’t address medium density housing and the key issues that promote good design by that kind of development.”

Roberts Day managing director Erwin Roberts told the forum that town planning schemes often had roots that went back many years and were very prescriptive.

“Supposedly the schemes have to be updated every five years, but because they are such major documents, most town planning schemes in the metro area are not updated that often,” he said.

“I think Stirling has had one for 20 or 25 years, Rockingham for 25 years, and when you get schemes that aren’t moving as quickly as contemporary planning, then you get problems.

“There are a raft of issues that developers need to address, and they have the experience and are mature enough to handle it.

“Where the concern comes from is that, after spending a year pulling together a development appraisal, having addressed all the issues and putting together a total package, a government agency may then pick on one particular area and not look at that as the developer has – in the total context.”

Mayor of Cottesloe Rob Rowell agreed that the complexities of town planning were a major hurdle, and made change very difficult.

“One of the biggest problems is when you want to change a town planning scheme that the process you have to follow is all set up by State Planning – it is so long, arduous and onerous that by the time you send it off to State Planning and they are done with it, you have almost forgotten about it,” Mr Rowell said.

“Really, State Planning in all these factors is the major area where things could improve.

“If State Planning was more innovative in their thoughts and were more co-operative and actually realised that they had a role in helping local government and getting involved in these areas, then a lot of the problems would evaporate.

“State Planning needs to change its whole orientation and how it operates.”

LandCorp CEO Ross Holt suggested depoliticising the planning process may be a solution.

“If you make the planning process go through a tribunal or some sort of body rather than something which involves the political process, the outcomes may be different,” he said.