Are you Stoked by NSW planning vision?
Don’t be - beneath its friendly cloak lurks Jack the Ripper
February 27, 2021
Bold and beautiful? Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they’re stupid, or they just think we are. Planning Minister Rob Stokes says his new “Design and Place” State Environmental Planning Policy is bold. He says it will make our towns and cities “just get more beautiful” every year.
That’s the spin. From what’s available so far, which is the SEPP’s EIE (explanation of intended effect), I’d bracket it with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, also from Stokes’ watch. That act made its core purpose about future wellbeing, resilience and “supporting biodiversity in a changing climate”. In fact, it allowed land-clearing to multiply 1300 per cent.
That’s the spin. From what’s available so far, which is the SEPP’s EIE (explanation of intended effect), I’d bracket it with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, also from Stokes’ watch. That act made its core purpose about future wellbeing, resilience and “supporting biodiversity in a changing climate”. In fact, it allowed land-clearing to multiply 1300 per cent.
NSW Minister for Planning Rob Stokes with Government Architect Abbie Galvin at the Australian Museum.
Credit: Louise Kennerley
Credit: Louise Kennerley
Just as the Biodiversity Conservation Act was a pretty cloak for the undermining of both diversity and conservation, this SEPP fronts the relentless and consciously fast-tracked destruction of our urban and rural environments.
The website carries a weirdly fawning 45-minute backslap between Stokes and Government Architect Abbie “I couldn’t agree more, Minister” Galvin. It’s all very jolly. Galvin offers her boss Dorothy Dixers about affordable housing (“we brought in a SEPP to deal with that”), sustainability and so forth and he rabbits on endearingly about beauty and Jan Gehl and the importance of having design at the centre of – well – everything, while dropping more names than Zsa Zsa Gabor dropped husbands.
It’s all bit “nothing darling, just darling, darling”. Stokes’ sweet-faced intelligence, his earnestness, make you want to believe him. I’d love nothing more. But do they think we’re blind?
“Design-led development” sounds promising. Be not fooled. Design-led development was Chris Johnson’s catch-cry as he slid in 2005 from government architect to advising planning minister Frank Sartor as they rezoned Redfern for 18 storeys, then finally to the dark side as chief executive of developer lobby-group Urban Task Force. Design-led development merely justifies gargantuan development as “good design”. Viz, Barangaroo.
London’s enormous $27 billion, 50-plus-storey Nine Elms is such a “design-led” development. Much-loved by Boris Johnson, it turns the Thames south bank from Battersea to Vauxhall into super-luxury residential. An admixture of “affordable” housing means plebs-like-us can watch the penthouse set frolic in a glass-bottom swimming pool hung above the street. But they enter through the poor door.
Design-led? Stokes has been Planning Minister (or assistant planning minister) for five of the past seven years. If he had any genuine interest in beauty, environmentalism, consultation or connection to country we’d be seeing it by now.
The website carries a weirdly fawning 45-minute backslap between Stokes and Government Architect Abbie “I couldn’t agree more, Minister” Galvin. It’s all very jolly. Galvin offers her boss Dorothy Dixers about affordable housing (“we brought in a SEPP to deal with that”), sustainability and so forth and he rabbits on endearingly about beauty and Jan Gehl and the importance of having design at the centre of – well – everything, while dropping more names than Zsa Zsa Gabor dropped husbands.
It’s all bit “nothing darling, just darling, darling”. Stokes’ sweet-faced intelligence, his earnestness, make you want to believe him. I’d love nothing more. But do they think we’re blind?
“Design-led development” sounds promising. Be not fooled. Design-led development was Chris Johnson’s catch-cry as he slid in 2005 from government architect to advising planning minister Frank Sartor as they rezoned Redfern for 18 storeys, then finally to the dark side as chief executive of developer lobby-group Urban Task Force. Design-led development merely justifies gargantuan development as “good design”. Viz, Barangaroo.
London’s enormous $27 billion, 50-plus-storey Nine Elms is such a “design-led” development. Much-loved by Boris Johnson, it turns the Thames south bank from Battersea to Vauxhall into super-luxury residential. An admixture of “affordable” housing means plebs-like-us can watch the penthouse set frolic in a glass-bottom swimming pool hung above the street. But they enter through the poor door.
Design-led? Stokes has been Planning Minister (or assistant planning minister) for five of the past seven years. If he had any genuine interest in beauty, environmentalism, consultation or connection to country we’d be seeing it by now.
Instead, we have a city scarred by 10-lane motorways through parks and neighbourhoods, by endless toxic tunnels where signs warn not to breathe the air, by relentless metastases of 40-storey tower blocks jammed on every site a developer has been able to grab. We have public housing being rampantly redeveloped as private, sweet little train stations suddenly replaced by five-storey behemoths, bureaucrats sacked for refusing to fell thousands of highway trees, sprawl around virtually every country town, new coalmines approved apace and farmers forced to defend their land from huge mining corporates. Stokes’ reign is one of the most destructive the state has seen
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Stokes’ EIE is a verbose document, a hundred-page fatberg of repetition, redundancy and fluff. It begins, as all government documents now do, with an acknowledgement of country. Then, hidden in they grey lipid mess, your fingers touch on five ill-defined principles, and I quote: “1. Design places with beauty and character that people feel proud to belong to. 2. Design inviting public spaces to support engaged communities. 3. Design productive and connected places for the wellbeing of people and the environment 4. Design sustainable and greener places to enable thriving communities. 5. Design resilient and diverse places for enduring communities.”
What? Each principle alone is a furball and in truth they’re really just one. Even that – design good spaces – is also meaningless because what matters, if we’re to have any chance of realising these, is how a good (resilient, welcoming, productive) place is defined. And that, Mr Minister, is why we have rules. To protect us.
So when Stokes says, blithely, that he’s dumping rules and replacing them with performance-based principles, your hackles should rise. When he says putting design at the centre will make “the whole process of development … cheaper and simpler and quicker” you should reach for your cudgel.
Good design is hard to do. It doesn’t make things quicker. And we’ve had ever fewer planning rules for 25 years. Now, as you can tell by looking around, there are almost none, especially if you’re a developer.
For, like Nine Elms, our planning system also has a poor door. If you or I want to build a granny flat we suffer a barrage of planning, heritage and environmental rules. But if you’re a developer yearning for lunchtime access to the minister, where everything is negotiable, you need only make your proposal big enough or outrageous enough to be declared State Significant Development or Unsolicited. Then the door is wide open and held by a uniformed flunky.
Elevating principle over rule – replacing the planning system’s few remaining musts and shalls with shoulds and mays, considerations and guidelines – can only make this worse.
The document is out for comment. There’ll be no dissent. Of course not. “Motherhood statement” is a term of derision not because anyone hates motherhood but precisely because it’s unobjectionable. Rob Stokes’ “bold” is anyone else’s wet fish. Yet its very harmlessness should cause alarm. Beneath this friendly cloak lurks Jack the Ripper.
Meanwhile, Stokes’ accelerated rezonings, fast-tracked approvals, land-clearing and expanded complying development – all on a pretext of COVID-19 – continue apace. Consultation? Not likely.
Stokes himself may be either sincere but ineffectual, or insincere and disguising destruction. Weak or cynical. You choose. Regardless, one planning law is immutable. Words are cheap. By their deeds shall ye know them.
What? Each principle alone is a furball and in truth they’re really just one. Even that – design good spaces – is also meaningless because what matters, if we’re to have any chance of realising these, is how a good (resilient, welcoming, productive) place is defined. And that, Mr Minister, is why we have rules. To protect us.
So when Stokes says, blithely, that he’s dumping rules and replacing them with performance-based principles, your hackles should rise. When he says putting design at the centre will make “the whole process of development … cheaper and simpler and quicker” you should reach for your cudgel.
Good design is hard to do. It doesn’t make things quicker. And we’ve had ever fewer planning rules for 25 years. Now, as you can tell by looking around, there are almost none, especially if you’re a developer.
For, like Nine Elms, our planning system also has a poor door. If you or I want to build a granny flat we suffer a barrage of planning, heritage and environmental rules. But if you’re a developer yearning for lunchtime access to the minister, where everything is negotiable, you need only make your proposal big enough or outrageous enough to be declared State Significant Development or Unsolicited. Then the door is wide open and held by a uniformed flunky.
Elevating principle over rule – replacing the planning system’s few remaining musts and shalls with shoulds and mays, considerations and guidelines – can only make this worse.
The document is out for comment. There’ll be no dissent. Of course not. “Motherhood statement” is a term of derision not because anyone hates motherhood but precisely because it’s unobjectionable. Rob Stokes’ “bold” is anyone else’s wet fish. Yet its very harmlessness should cause alarm. Beneath this friendly cloak lurks Jack the Ripper.
Meanwhile, Stokes’ accelerated rezonings, fast-tracked approvals, land-clearing and expanded complying development – all on a pretext of COVID-19 – continue apace. Consultation? Not likely.
Stokes himself may be either sincere but ineffectual, or insincere and disguising destruction. Weak or cynical. You choose. Regardless, one planning law is immutable. Words are cheap. By their deeds shall ye know them.
Download the PDF Version
Robert Gordon STOKES, MP
Member of the Legislative Assembly
Member for Pittwater Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Member of the Liberal Party |
Feedback Comments to Elizabeth Farrelly
Clarinet
As I read Elizabeth's beautifully crafted piece my heart sank even further in relation to our government’s inability and unwillingness to conduct sophisticated thought and design. We are destined for a terrible sea of mediocrity in our urban environment. How sad.
akcaH
Sadly, too many people lack imagination and don't know what they've got till it's gone. More sadly, LNP governments know exactly what they have to get rid of to get what they want.
HJ
Big development means big money and that's all anyone needs to know.
PRA
To clarify, Elizabeth, the state government think we’re stupid. And enough of the public are - either stupid or selfish or both - that the state government’s assessment is essentially correct.
Lilli Pilli
Great piece Elizabeth, you nailed it. This government is full of oxymorons and my favourite is, 'the Minister for Better Regulation'. Nothing is what it seems with this lot.
Phil 1943
Excellent article. Stokes' 'dream' deserves volumes of critique, and none of it should be receptive. What a con! This unwanted PR exercise imagines an impossible, developer-driven future with so-called Designs that could only be achieved by bulldozing every existing structure and starting over with a determination to blot out the skyline with towering structures adjacent to green patches where a bit of free space remains. Yes indeed, it is very jolly. Truly laughable, and soon to be forgotten.
Lard
Great article Elizabeth. I'm not sure what the new SEPP will entail and am sceptical about Stokes promises but I know from personal experience that the current SEPP has not enhanced the beauty of anything. Would love to see the removal of Complying Development Certificates (which enables faceless private certifiers to approve buildings thereby sidestepping any scrutiny from the relevant council) from any future SEPP.
ELIZABETH BARR
This is an asset stripping, developer driven, mercantile government without soul. Its environment record is appalling and its notion of urban planning is to plan corridors for high rise developments which benefit the construction industry and the bankers.
M
I could show you a scenic escarpment in a semi rural/coastal setting in northern NSW which will soon have a shiny new 9 storey hospital with helipad, the cherry, on top, dominating the skyline, blocking views of Mt Warning and a meagre amount spent on road infrastructure to deal with the extra traffic. Rob and others giving the finger to Kingscliff and Cudgen.
The Waves
Perhaps Rob Stokes could demonstrate the beauty of development using his own electorate of Pittwater as an example? I'm sure the residents would hunger for design led development to beautify their quality of life.
Nah, didn't think so...
A good article btw.
andrew.conacher
planning documents have become bigger and dumber over the last 30 years. more words pictures charts information boxes and colours ie the full gamut of what microsoft word can do.
the result has taken away time spent on planning in exchange for more time on marketing.
one example among many;
wollongong councillors commissioned a strategy for the redevelopment of the inner city ( which is really not that big) . combined, all the reports are heading for 1,000 pages.
result; political paralysis
expect a lot more development as we climb out of covid, you've seen nothing yet
sdunne
And the current residential property market boom has shown that many families aspire to the humble cottage with a backyard for the kids not the tiny box in the forty storey tower .How sad
Mapmaker
I work in government and I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say. However I can assure you that public facing documents are not produced using Microsoft Word! The horror! Think of the children.
As I read Elizabeth's beautifully crafted piece my heart sank even further in relation to our government’s inability and unwillingness to conduct sophisticated thought and design. We are destined for a terrible sea of mediocrity in our urban environment. How sad.
akcaH
Sadly, too many people lack imagination and don't know what they've got till it's gone. More sadly, LNP governments know exactly what they have to get rid of to get what they want.
HJ
Big development means big money and that's all anyone needs to know.
PRA
To clarify, Elizabeth, the state government think we’re stupid. And enough of the public are - either stupid or selfish or both - that the state government’s assessment is essentially correct.
Lilli Pilli
Great piece Elizabeth, you nailed it. This government is full of oxymorons and my favourite is, 'the Minister for Better Regulation'. Nothing is what it seems with this lot.
Phil 1943
Excellent article. Stokes' 'dream' deserves volumes of critique, and none of it should be receptive. What a con! This unwanted PR exercise imagines an impossible, developer-driven future with so-called Designs that could only be achieved by bulldozing every existing structure and starting over with a determination to blot out the skyline with towering structures adjacent to green patches where a bit of free space remains. Yes indeed, it is very jolly. Truly laughable, and soon to be forgotten.
Lard
Great article Elizabeth. I'm not sure what the new SEPP will entail and am sceptical about Stokes promises but I know from personal experience that the current SEPP has not enhanced the beauty of anything. Would love to see the removal of Complying Development Certificates (which enables faceless private certifiers to approve buildings thereby sidestepping any scrutiny from the relevant council) from any future SEPP.
ELIZABETH BARR
This is an asset stripping, developer driven, mercantile government without soul. Its environment record is appalling and its notion of urban planning is to plan corridors for high rise developments which benefit the construction industry and the bankers.
M
I could show you a scenic escarpment in a semi rural/coastal setting in northern NSW which will soon have a shiny new 9 storey hospital with helipad, the cherry, on top, dominating the skyline, blocking views of Mt Warning and a meagre amount spent on road infrastructure to deal with the extra traffic. Rob and others giving the finger to Kingscliff and Cudgen.
The Waves
Perhaps Rob Stokes could demonstrate the beauty of development using his own electorate of Pittwater as an example? I'm sure the residents would hunger for design led development to beautify their quality of life.
Nah, didn't think so...
A good article btw.
andrew.conacher
planning documents have become bigger and dumber over the last 30 years. more words pictures charts information boxes and colours ie the full gamut of what microsoft word can do.
the result has taken away time spent on planning in exchange for more time on marketing.
one example among many;
wollongong councillors commissioned a strategy for the redevelopment of the inner city ( which is really not that big) . combined, all the reports are heading for 1,000 pages.
result; political paralysis
expect a lot more development as we climb out of covid, you've seen nothing yet
sdunne
And the current residential property market boom has shown that many families aspire to the humble cottage with a backyard for the kids not the tiny box in the forty storey tower .How sad
Mapmaker
I work in government and I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say. However I can assure you that public facing documents are not produced using Microsoft Word! The horror! Think of the children.
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