"The secret to successful planning is to focus on steering growth rather than responding to it", says City of Canterbury Bankstown planning manager Simon Manoski Canterbury Bankstown were recently recognised at the Greater Sydney Commission’s 2021 Planning Awards.
The recently announced awards recognise city-shaping ideas, placemaking, excellence in development and community engagement. Mr Manoski says the plans, underpinned by an economic and night time economy strategy, aim to boost business, jobs, sustainable buildings, affordable homes, culture, open spaces and access to the Sydney CBD.
“We would rather be on the front foot with our planning and guide that growth as opposed to be responding to that growth,” Mr Manoski told Government News.
Mr Manoski says the aim was to prepare a strategy outside the box of ‘pure planning’.
Juxtaposed against the present stance of Eurobodalla Council that recognise Planning decisions made by Council three or more decades ago are still relevant it is little wonder that Independent NSW MP and South Coast resident Justin Field has called on NSW planning Minister Rob Stokes to intervene to prevent decades old ’zombie’ development approvals from clearing sensitive coastal bushland and to initiate a review of approvals, proposals and appropriate zonings along the South Coast.
Mr Field has written to NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes following his comments in recent media critical of the sale of bushland by Eurobodalla Shire Council to enable future residential development.
Mr Field has documented over 200 hectares of coastal bushland at risk at seven sites that are either approved or proposed for future residential development in small coastal villages, like Manyana and Dalmeny, in the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla. See the South Coast Bushland at Risk map.
Mr Field said, “These developments would change the face of some of the South Coast's most loved coastal villages and could see hundreds of hectares of sensitive coastal bushland clear-felled for totally unsustainable urban growth.
“Some of the development approvals and urban release plans are twenty, thirty or even forty years old. It is absurd to most to think these decisions should stand without reconsideration of the merit or impacts.
“The circumstances for many of these projects have changed and our understanding of what makes good planning has changed and we’ve also seen so much bushland damaged by the 2019/20 fires. We need a planning system that can adapt and is able to reconsider many of these proposals before so much critically important bushland is lost.
“I am asking Minister Stokes to establish a moratorium on the clearing of coastal bushland and forests from these historical approvals while a review of coastal development approvals, proposals and appropriate zoning is conducted,” Mr Field said.
At a recent Public Forum session the Eurobodalla Council's Councillors and Planning Director were addressed by Broulee resident and local GP, Dr Michelle Hamrosi.
Dr Hamrosi said:
"The environment we live in today has changed. Laws, regulations, protocols and plans that may have right yesterday are now obsolete. Along with our expectations and attitudes, they need to change.
"Post-bushfire, mid-pandemic, and in context of a changing climate, we must take another look at the meaning of community health and wellbeing.
"We must create a planning framework that includes consideration of the community’s health and well-being into all activities that council has control over, especially those that affect the space we inhabit – our environment. Is this going to be easy? Probably not - there are many competing, and often conflicting opinions and evidence that need to be taken into account as we evaluate new developments in our Shire.
"There must – of course - be new developments: change is inevitable - indeed it is essential if we are to grow our local economy. But change and growth must sit comfortably with the need for resilience in the face of the inevitable risk of drought, heat, bushfire, floods and storms.
The Councillors were reminded:
"It's 2021, it’s not the 1980s. Now is the time to have a serious conversation about considered and smart development in our Shire. Smart development. What is that?
Smart development is informed by climate risk and resilience.
Smart development retains shade and old habitat.
Smart development balances environmental and economic forces.
Above all, smart development depends upon communication.
Smart development depends upon the community - indeed, smart development is driven by the community. Smart development does not cost - it’s an investment with a visible and measurable return.
Can we do this? Of course, we can. We must all be agents of change. After all, we are the Nature Coast - let’s live up to that name.
The time has come to recognise intelligent, world first, responsive planning and consider award winning strategies that sit outside the box of ‘pure planning’ rather than dispense small "p" planning that is irrelevant, lazy, delivers less than we deserve and does little more than ticks boxes.
