The new changes to NSW planning laws proposed by the Barry O'Farrell Liberal government involve "the most significant backward step in public participation and environment protection in more than a generation. They are significantly worse than Part 3A," James Ryan from the Nature Conservation Council told a public forum of about 60 people at Redfern Town Hall on May 27.
Part 3A was the infamous law under which the previous Labor state government could override community and environmental concerns in making planning decisions in the interests of big developers.
Such legislation played a role in promoting ministerial corruption, as revealed in the current Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) hearings concerning former ALP MPs Ian McDonald and Eddie Obeid.
The forum was organised by the local community groups REDWatch — representing the suburbs of Redfern, Eveleigh, Alexandria, Darlington and Waterloo — and the Alexandria Residents' Action Group and was supported by the Chippendale Residents' Interest Group.
It was part of a series of public meetings around the city of Sydney to voice community concerns over the proposed new state planning laws.
The NSW Greens said: "Though the O'Farrell government was elected on the promise to do away with Part 3A and 'return planning powers to the local community', they are actually placing something worse in its place — Strategic Compatibility Certificates (SCC).
“An SCC allows a senior planning bureaucrat, the director general of planning, to 'certify that specific development on specific land is permissible ... despite any prohibition on the carrying out of the development' in a Local Plan.
“Effectively, local planning laws can be overridden whenever the director general thinks that provisions in local planning laws which prohibit a development have not been amended to 'give effect to' a regional or sub-regional growth plan.
“Developers have been given a free hand to challenge any restrictions in local planning laws by going directly to the state government for site-by-site rezonings.
“Instead of returning planning powers to local communities, premier O'Farrell plans to give developers a free hand to override any pesky local planning laws that try to retain precious open space."
Ryan warned the forum that the proposed new planning laws "potentially create the same sort of risk of corruption as previously warned of by the ICAC."
Corinne Fisher, from the Better Planning Network, a coalition of 390 local community groups across NSW, said that, "NSW residents deserve a fair, responsible, democratic and robust planning system."
She urged forum attendees to get involved in the public campaign to challenge the O'Farrell government's undemocratic new planning proposals.
Ron Hoenig, Labor MP for the seat of Heffron, described the new legislation as "a developers' dream, and an unmitigated disaster. The state government is handing over full planning control to the developers."
David Shoebridge MLC, the Greens NSW planning spokesperson, addressed the issue that the new proposals emphasise supposed community involvement in initial "strategic planning" processes, but eliminate community rights to challenge specific, local planning decisions. "Why counterpose these two levels?" he asked. This will result in a "fundamental removal of democratic control" over the planning system, he told the forum.
Peter Boyle, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney in the upcoming federal elections, told Green Left Weekly, "This question of planning the future of Sydney and other cities raises fundamental concerns about our society and the environment.
"Who will make the decisions and in whose interests? Corporate power and its agents in the major parties in government, in the interests of developers and big business, or the ordinary people in the interests of the community and the survival of the planet?
"The future of humanity and ecological sustainability hangs in the balance, with the capitalist crisis and looming climate change.
"Strategic and local planning decisions urgently need to reorient to socially and environmentally sustainable development. This involves key areas like affordable and ecological housing, public transport in place of new roads, renewable energy systems and public facilities.
"Planning processes must be radically transformed, to be placed in the hands of local communities, in cooperation with an overall planning system decided democratically by a people's government in the interests of the whole of society and the environment.
"These proposed new NSW planning laws go in precisely the wrong direction: more power to the bureaucrats and the developers. We need to put power into the hands of the people, in the direction of a truly democratic, sustainable, socialist future," Boyle said.