FOLLOWING community and industry concern, the ACT government will reform Canberra’s planning system by simplifying it and making sure it protects the character and diversity of the city.
Over the next 25 years, the ACT will need about 100,000 new homes and associated infrastructure to keep up with a growing population, according to Minister for Planning and Land Development Mick Gentleman, who is releasing six planning review and reform papers outlining a clear pathway for a more user-friendly system.
The reform papers follow community consultation and a review into the planning system, which revealed community concern about the quality of development, its impacts on landscape character and the ability to participate in the planning process.
The broad aims of the review and reform project will be to simplify the planning system, improve the balance between certainty and flexibility in the system, and incorporate character, context and design as key elements of the system.
Further community consultation and engagement will be undertaken in 2021.
I will believe this when I see actual results. This mob haven’t yet managed to successfully reform anything they’ve put their hand to.
Simplifying a planning process usually means removing safeguards that developers find tiresome.
Based on how wrong the projections have been in the past there’s no way they can accurately predict how big this city will be in 25 years time.