August depaNews

On 26 July the last depaNews was published proposing cutting councillors out of development assessment. We gave plenty of good reasons and dared you all to give us three good reasons why councillors should have anything to do with considering a DA.

We didn’t receive one good reason. And that included us broadcasting the issue to the board of LGNSW who, neither collectively nor individually, could come up with a good reason and convey it to us. They were speechless.

In the interests of disclosure though, one of our members provided two good reasons - first, “because it is so often immensely amusing” and second, because “they make planners feel smart”. Yes we know, that really goes without saying, doesn’t it.

But clearly we started something didn’t we. The following day the Government made two announcements about local government.

The first, and most relevant to what had been an unshakeable commitment by the NSW Government while Mike Baird was Premier, was to announce the abandonment of those amalgamations that were pending and the subject of a variety of litigation. Not for Gladys any conviction when it’s unpopular, if it’s unpopular then it’s time to abandon it.

And we would assume that because the legal challenges were primarily about the failure of the Government it was never going to end well. Who needs to get rolled in the High Court because the authoritarian bureaucrats in the Department of Premier and Cabinet insisted the financial analysis in the KPMG report had to be confidential, raising issues of procedural fairness. And potentially the same bureaucrats couldn’t find the right part of the Local Government Act to amalgamate one local government area and the remainder of another, once a section was “excised“ from Hornsby and given to Parramatta City. Not a lot of smart people involved in those decisions.

And the second, and most relevant to our proposed course of action, was the announcement that Cabinet that day was going to consider “stripping councils of DA approval powers”. While the Herald did claim that it would be “reconsideration” (because there had been rumours of this occurring back in May but the Government not having the appetite for it) that doesn’t really count.

The expose in the Sydney Morning Herald about the ongoing ICAC investigation into planning decisions at the former Canterbury Council was the catalyst. The Government had to think again about the issue but with a reasonable expectation of some kind of emotional support from the Opposition. As the Herald made clear, those planning decisions, rejecting the recommendations of staff, were made by an untraditional alliance of ALP and Liberal councillors - add a couple of floors here, blow out the floor space ratio there, on and on.

But, that will teach us, next time we’ll shred all of those brainstorming documents we have about building a better world now we know they go through our recycling.

The Herald was right, Cabinet did consider establishing IHAPs on 27 July but the decision was deferred - they say, to allow consultation with the developers (that is, the Property Council), the ICAC and local government. Whether they did, or whether they didn’t, the Minister for Planning and Minister for Housing Anthony Roberts and the Minister the Local Government Gabrielle Upton were able to jointly announce on 8 August that IHAPs would be introduced for Sydney councils.

The Government claimed that Wollongong and 15 Sydney Metropolitan councils were already voluntarily and successfully using IHAPs and the Bill to be introduced into parliament would make it mandatory for all councils in the Greater Sydney area and Wollongong, because Wollongong wanted to be part of it.

While a real independent IHAP would be a qualitative and significant improvement in the assessment and consideration of DAs, and where we are entitled to expect significant levels of acceptance of the recommendations of planning staff, just who the Government thinks will be “independent” enough is their next challenge.

Greens member of the Legislative Council David Shoebridge summarised the decades of messy planning law considerations by the NSW Government in the second reading speech for the Environmental Planning and Assessment and Electoral Legislation Amendment (Planning Panels and Enforcement) Bill 2017, on 9 August:

This Parliament is like a dog returning to its vomit when it comes to planning laws; it just keeps going back and looking at the same ugly mess that previous governments have made.

Hard to argue with that. And for those of you who think it a little unseemly to be publishing a quote about dogs’ vomit, and because we take our responsibilities seriously to educate people in depaNews as well as entertain, inform and prepare you for Trivia nights, the full quote comes from the Christian Bible - Proverbs chapter 26 verse 11, to be precise. While older versions of the book regard the dog and the fool as male, the modern versions make it less gender specific:

As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.

Here is a link to David Shoebridge’s speech. It’s a great speech.

While the Government’s legislation went through both Houses unamended, the critical issue is going to be how these IHAPS work and how the Minister for Planning, who will be responsible for managing the membership of the Panels, will do that in a way which provides true independence.

In the Media Release issued on 8 August the two Ministers reveal an anxiety about a conflict of interest for the “council or developer” driving this proposal but there seems little concern for managing “independent” members of IHAPs to ensure that they don’t have a conflict of interest either. It will be difficult for members of IHAPs, consultant planners, architects, heritage experts or whatever to not be keeping a wary eye out for future client needs as these DAs roll across their desks.

But we have a suggestion to make. depa is well placed, drawing upon the expertise of planning staff across councils in NSW, to be able to assist the Minister for Planning in making these decisions. We would happily participate in consultation with the Minister, feeding in any information we may have from our members about proposed members of Panels, their connections to developers, any slavish servitude to the Property Council, previous whiffy clients, or whatever. We should have a right of veto, just like members of the Security Council at the UN do.

We’ll put this proposal to the Minister and see what he thinks.

The community must be confident about the independence of these experts making decisions. While our proposal for council staff making the decisions is built on the assumption that Council employees don’t have a vested interest in whether development proceeds or not, just whether it complies with the planning instrument, we need the same assurance for these independent panels.

It’s a reasonable concern that on a four person panel, if there are to be three “independent expert members”, that they are really independent experts. A fourth member is intended to be a local representative within the LGA “to provide local perspective,” whatever that is. The reality is that the local perspective is provided by the planning instrument. At least councillors are prohibited from sitting, the Government clearly having a concluded view about the value of elected representatives providing a local perspective

The two ministers announced that IHAPs members “will have to be expert in one or more of the following fields: planning, architecture, heritage, the environment, urban design, economics, traffic and transport, law, engineering, tourism, or government and public administration.” At least membership of the Property Council or the Urban Design Institute is not a pre-requisite, so it could be worse. They could probably scratch out economics and tourism from that list – a bit too close to the market and a step away from understanding planning instruments.

But Councils already have employees considering and assessing DAs with those skills, experience and background. The Government has the numbers, the rollout will proceed but we will be keeping an eye on who the Minister endorses as members of Panels and keeping a record of how they deal with staff recommendations. Let’s see if they’re any better.

Oh no, it’s now less than two weeks until the local government elections. All manner of boofheads, corruption-allegers, one issue zealots, closet developers, lying developers, and the self-interested are lining up. What a pleasant respite it has been for those in the merged councils. Administrators taking notice of staff recommendations and adopting them, no councillor pressure, no councillors failing to declare their property interests, none of the things that give local government a bad reputation.

We understand the complications of being involved in the assessing of DAs. For every successful applicant there are invariably unsuccessful objectors and that creates a pool of people interested in getting even. And vice versa. Despite Codes of Conduct we know councillors pressure staff, threaten staff and try to have staff members sacked.

depa and its members have now for more than a decade taken action to support members against unreasonable treatment of councillors. We first placed a ban on a councillor in 2000 at Parramatta where the boofhead in a public meeting bagged a couple of our members. We extracted an apology. We’ve taken similar action at Mudgee and Nambucca against developers, at Eurobodalla against a councillor, bans were placed on certain work at Parramatta again in 2009 and last year against the recidivist councillor who may well be back after 9 September (but at Cumberland, so at Parramatta they can breathe easier) and we will continue to do so.

If you’re reading this but not a member, it’s time to get on board. Being a professional working in local government is far too unpredictable to be doing it without our protection.

We’ve had members suffering from anxiety and depression about their work and personal lives and been involved in assisting those members at work on many, many occasions. We’ve now had one Council accept a workers compensation claim from one of our members based on harassment and bullying by management, and we know that many of you suffer - and often suffer alone.

Most people who know someone who has suicided are shocked and surprised. They wish they had asked the right questions.

RUOK? began in 1995 when a bloke called Barry Larkin, a much-loved father, took his own life, devastating his family and friends. The family, his son in particular, started the movement to get people to look after each other a bit better. It’s RUOK? Day on 10 September, so you should ask someone at work.

But there is a more personal option affecting our members.

Walk and Talk is an initiative by some members to get people together for a casual one-hour walk to talk about mental health and suicide, to encourage conversation and listening between people to avoid suicide and try to reduce mental health issues.

The event was triggered and organised by a group of building surveyors, EHOs and planners who lost a popular, well-liked and valued friend and colleague to suicide in the last year. depa is only more than happy to assist and publicise the initiative and the event. He was a member of ours as well and we only wish we could have helped.

Here is the full page invitation but in short, if you think you could do with the comfort of this kind of experience or you’d like to provide a comfort of your own to those who may need it, or you could do with a walk and some conversation on a Saturday morning, be at Parc Menai down in the Shire at 9am on Saturday 24 September. It’s not a fundraiser, it is a great mental health and wellbeing initiative.

And I will see you there.