Madden reviews state planning rules – worse for the community
Along with the Planning Act Review and other recent changes to the planning regime (allegedly in the short-term economic interest), the draft changes to the state planning rules will weaken urban planning controls. This is despite the fact that current crises like peak oil and climate change demand MORE prescriptive regulation, not less, to actively focus development and new infrastructure on creating a more functional, sustainable city.
On 2nd February 2010, SOS lodged a critical submission with the Department of Planning on the Review of the State Planning Policy Framework.
To download the submission, click on the attachment below:
Housing 35 Million - the population debate continues, INSIGHT March 2
Watch "Insight" on SBS, Tuesday March 2 at 7.30pm for this discussion on what a growing population boom will mean for house prices and the way we live. Australian current affairs forum program, presented by Jenny Brockie.
Minister for Respect is really Minister of Manipulation - Madden must go!
More revelations about spin doctoring by Madden and his planning department surfaced in the last week of February in the form of an internal memo from a media advisor accidentally sent to the ABC.
Madden subsequently "counselled" then "re-deployed" the adviser, whose memo detailed, among other things, a plan to release a planning report on the controversial Windsor Hotel re-development and then publicly cite community reaction to support a pre-determined decision to block the scheme.
Listen to the full versions of Madden’s defensive radio interviews on Feb.26, courtesy of the Marvellous Melbourne website - first with
Jon Faine (ABC 774) - www.vimeo.com/9744001
and then
“Jon, er, Neil” Mitchell on 3AW - www.vimeo.com/9752386
The ABC TV news stories on Feb 25 & 26 are also worth checking out: www.vimeo.com/9732178 www.vimeo.com/9771435
New SOS committee for 2010
The election of three new members and the departure of several others for professional and personal reasons has seen an injection of new blood into the SOS committee following our AGM late last year.
President Ian Wood, veteran local government activist and planning advocate, is joined by Vice-President Louis Delacretaz, an entrepreneur with extensive experience in local government as a former councillor and mayor in Melbourne's outer east.
Also new to the committee are government bureaucracy expert Libby Blackett-Smith and lawyer Ann Birrell. Julie Buxton, from the Living in the Bush Coalition, has been appointed treasurer.
Draft Bill on changes to Planning Act – taking democratic control away from Councils and Residents
What’s missing is any future vision for the sustainable development of Melbourne. And in the words of the Municipal Association of Victoria, “the draft fails to acknowledge and strengthen local government’s roles in planning, creates risk and uncertainty for local government...”
SOS submission concludes that:-
The philosophical approach to this Draft has clearly been to “streamline” (deregulate) planning processes under the Act.