Let’s toss the Integrated Planning Act and start from scratch

Perhaps most controversially, it's time to clarify what has long been a murky area, a source both of public disquiet and development industry complaints about uncertainty. IPA's elaborate “infrastructure charges” provisions don't distinguish between (a), planning conditions of approval which should apply (in or out of “sequence”) in respect of development standards and internal infrastructure; (b), impact fees in respect of the consequential impact of proposals on existing public infrastructure; and (c), contributions which should capture, for community development and betterment, the unearned increases in assessed land value attributable to significant material changes of use.

The development industry may cavil at (c), but clearing the air would at least eliminate the uncertainty about which developers have justifiably complained. And community disquiet about “donations” to councillors' electoral expenses could be allayed if windfall land value profits were eliminated.

The public revenue implications of (c) have a very real bearing of course upon the prospects of genuine tax reform. If more public revenue were derived from the community's land resources, we could reduce our present reliance upon personal and corporate income taxation and on indefensible imposts like stamp duties and payroll taxes.

A clear exposition of the object and benefits of planning and an intelligible spelling out of planning principles and processes may become increasingly important in the light of an emerging threat to democratic local (and state) planning. As recently evidenced in Brisbane, privatised airport corporations can virtually do what they like on Federal Government controlled land.

Given a Federal Government which has never exhibited much empathy with land-use planning, and which has recently displayed an appetite for extending its jurisdiction at the expense of the states, the long-term prospect is alarming. It could portend the end of community-based planning as we know it, and the emergence instead of US-style “planning”, with the location and character of privatised new city centres being dictated by the corporate dollar.