Progressive inclusion of the Peel region south of Perth city in planning for the expansion of metropolitan Perth raises many serious and unanswered questions about Management of Planning.
The increasingly centralised land-use Planning decision-making system in WA is founded on a curious statement that it should be “orderly and proper” (thus leaving endless scope for litigious disputation to arrive at decisions that are supposed to fair and in the collective public interest!)
However, over-lying this ‘regulatory’ preoccupation, the implications obvious to ‘us’ the community paymasters, are that the Planning system should be constantly up-to-date and responsive to predictable changing future social needs and take utmost care to respect site characteristics in different localities. These are however apparently proving to be uncomfortably difficult, as neither of these primary determinants are evident in development being approved recently in and around Perth.
The attached 3 Papers represent a serious attempt from a community viewpoint to show just how the system is becoming irrelevant – but also offer detailed constructive suggestions as to exactly what changes would be helpful to the management of Planning overall. The study is based on the very large area around the Peel-Harvey Estuary, but many of the practical issues are equally relevant throughout the Perth region.