The effectiveness of standard local environmental plan provisions in NSW has been questioned in a recently published review. These plans affect development and land use across the state, including the supply of housing.
As part of a complex framework of regulations, strategic plans, and planning instruments, local environmental plans (local plans) set approval processes and development pathways for local areas. These plans strongly influence the scope of what happens where, and how.
When introduced in 2006 by the NSW Government, standard local plan provisions were seen as a way to bring consistency across the state, improve the efficiency of the planning system, and to enable faster development approvals. Uniformity was championed by the development industry to reduce the number of different planning instruments and to simplify the development process.
Little thought was given to what local planning controls are actually needed, their structure, and opportunities for innovation and improvement. Embedding the past was seen as the future.
Enabled by changes to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act), the Standard Instrument (Local Environmental Plans) Order 2006 required a standard format for all local plans.
Standardised land use zones and definitions were introduced, with the NSW Government empowered to amend all local plans across the state simultaneously, without notice, and at whim. Mapping required to support and interpret local plans also became vastly more complex.
Andrew Kelly and I reviewed the background and consequences of the NSW standard instrument local environmental plan. Their findings published in the Australian Planner journal cast doubt on the benefits of standardisation.
Introducing the standard local plan provisions actually increased the length and complexity of many local instruments. It has stifled local creativity, flexibility and place-based land use outcomes. A significant proportion of professional planners are ambivalent about its benefits.
Standard local plan provisions also have a strong urban focus. Many administrative difficulties were caused for local councils by their introduction, especially in non-metropolitan areas. The nuances and characteristics of local areas and places are unable to be recognised in standard plans, land use zone objectives are largely generic and often meaningless, and provisions for rural land and environmental protection are problematic and ineffective.
An important conclusion from the review is that standard local plans have not improved either planning processes or land use outcomes. If anything, effective and locally responsive land use planning has been smothered by state control. The need for local flexibility is not reflected in generic statewide provisions.
The need for local land use plans and decision-making in planning was recognised in the EP&A Act when first introduced. This applied the principle of subsidiarity where public responsibilities shall generally be exercised, in preference, by those authorities that are closest to the citizen.
Decisions affecting local areas should be thus be made by local government unless there are clear state interests involved. The practice of standardised local plans contradicts objectives of the Act to share responsibility between different levels of government, and to provide increased opportunity for community participation in planning processes.
Regulatory responsibility in the land use planning system needs to be both carefully considered, and appropriately allocated in the public interest. The subsidiarity principle does not mean the state government has no role to play. Rather it does suggest that the state must be willing to grant sufficient powers and resources for local councils to prepare their own plans in a locally relevant way, and with sufficient regard to community interests.
Standard plans fall short
In practice, standard zones are standard in name but not in reality. Local governments work around a broad system by introducing different suites of permissible uses and applying zones of the same name to different types of land use.
This means that the same standard zones in different areas may have quite different requirements. Paradoxically, standardisation has brought complexity. There are also examples where controls applied by the state government in state environmental planning policies have failed to apply standard provisions and are inconsistent with local plans.
While standard local plans may be a reasonable idea in theory, deficiencies are clearly evident after more than a decade and a half of practice. The mandatory nature of local plan change without consultation is problematic.
It has been used to impose state policy and suppress local innovation, thereby stifling planning creativity and adaptation. Standardisation makes it more difficult to align strategic plans with regulatory plans, and has also made local plans much larger than necessary. It would be far better to have a standard format that is voluntary and advisory, where individual councils decide how and to what extent standard provisions are applied.
We found that the Standard Instrument Local Environmental Plan framework is an unnecessary instrument and not required for consistent state planning and policy implementation. With the NSW planning system continuing to rely on strict statutory development controls, it adds to an overwhelming and complicated system controlled by state government interests.
Model local plan provisions together with better administrative oversight of the plan-making process and the use of state environmental planning policies to direct state policy change would be more appropriate.
Complexity and lack of cohesion across the whole NSW planning system represents a continuing problem. The current system does not facilitate effective land use or development responses to current and emerging issues. There is a strong case for reviewing the relevance of standard local plans and for abandoning the current approach entirely.
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Standard local plan provisions led to administrative costs for local government, brought as much ambiguity as certainty, and have not improved the efficiency of the planning system or faster development approvals. Of most concern, standardisation has entrenched outdated definitions and land use language and stifled change at a time when innovative approaches are needed to deal with current and emerging future issues.
At a time when climate change responses, biodiversity loss and housing supply and affordability are the focus of public attention, it is time to move forward from standardised and outdated local plans that prevent effective responses to these issues.
