Whatever it takes

For an answer to that question we can look to the achievements of Planning Minister Frank Sartor’s Western Australian counterpart, Alannah McTiernan. Since becoming Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, she has made sure that community consultation is not an empty gesture but plays a valuable role in shaping planning decisions.

The RWA’s efforts to fulfil Robert Domm’s promise are an embarrassment compared with the extent to which not only the WA Government has consulted, but also acted on the community’s wishes. Take, for example, Dialogue with the City, where 1,100 Perth citizens deliberated on the WA Government’s options but ended up supporting an option the Department had not even put on the table. The chosen model – known as “Network City”, a “transit oriented development” model which features high density nodes connected by slow and fast transport lanes – has now become a template for Western Australian urban development.

“By engaging with ‘ordinary citizens’, without agendas, and weighing of options rather than debate, ridicule and anger,” environmental outcomes can be achieved which are more consistent with community values

In Redfern-Waterloo, fresh ideas such as Network City (which was developed by WA planning academic) are shot down before they are even subjected to adequate consideration. As Tim Brunero reported (SSH May 2006), RWA focus group organisers “dismissed as untenable” the concept of property developers funding community facilities. Likewise, when I attended a briefing at RWA headquarters the organisers said no one had even considered the possibility of establishing incentives for people to live in accommodation without a car space or resident parking. Too many innovative, viable alternatives are being neglected due to sclerotic planning processes whose time is up.

The WA Road Freight Consensus Conference, which took place in 2001, was initiated because there were many freight route ‘hotspots’ which were not resolved to the community’s satisfaction. As in Redfern-Waterloo, the community felt its issues and voice were being ignored. Unlike the NSW planning approach, the WA Labor Government promised affected communities that they would have a say in setting the rules regulating heavy vehicles. Four forums of 90 citizens each were facilitated by independent experts together with departmental staff. The results of these deliberations have become the agenda for state government, including a new port 15 years earlier than previously planned and other innovative land use planning measures to reduce the impacts of road freight, such as the establishment of ‘inland ports’ or intermodal facilities. According to facilitator Janette Hartz-Karp, “It was significant that the highly charged atmosphere at the start of the forums was replaced by extraordinary good will following the exercise in empathetic listening.”

The RWA too has an opportunity to engender extraordinary good will by following the example of Alannah McTiernan and her Department. Another WA deliberative forum which considered the question of high-rise in the Scarborough Beach precinct decided on a high-rise policy limit of 8 floors.

“By engaging with ‘ordinary citizens’, without agendas, and weighing of options rather than debate, ridicule and anger,” environmental outcomes can be achieved which are more consistent with community values. Adds Janette, “there’s also the positive of the ‘people’ owning the result and being prepared to stand up for it when the opposition and media try to tear it down.”

At first I was prepared to allow that Robert Domm and his staff were unaware of the tremendous steps forward the West Australians are making in long-term planning, but that can’t be true. Mr Domm, if you are prepared to do “whatever it takes”, you should announce the commencement of a Dialogue With the City type of process and let’s really start making some visionary planning decisions for Redfern-Waterloo.

[South Sydney Herald August 2006]