SHRAPNEL URBAN PLANNING
Suite 18
336 Churchill Avenue
Subiaco
Western Australia 6008ABN 37 139 283 692
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Flexibility vs DogmatismPlanning strategies are now commonplace in Western Australia. About 13 years ago local governments started preparing commercial strategies to guide/ control commercial centre developments. A bit later came housing strategies, rural strategies, industrial strategies and transport strategies. Nowadays each local government's statutory town planning scheme must be under-pinned by a comprehensive planning strategy, which incorporates all these aspects of the urban environment. I have prepared quite a few commercial strategies. They are often fairly major exercises, taking many months to complete. Upon completion, a local government will generally adopt its new strategy as a guide or policy, and it can be an influential planning instrument. This is all very rational, and I would be the first to agree that something like this is needed to back up statutory plans and guide local and state government decision making. However, there is a problem and it is that, no matter how comprehensively researched and well done a planning strategy might be, it can never represent, in its entirety, the only possible worthwhile outcome. There are an almost infinitely large number of possible urban outcomes, many of which would be quite satisfactory. However, invariably only one scenario - that perceived to be the best at the time - is the one that becomes the strategy. I recently had an experience where a commercial centre proposal that I was involved with was not in accord with the local government's commercial strategy although, within the particular local context, the proposal was a very good one that would clearly benefit the local community. Although after many months of argument it was eventually approved, a significant amount of opposition was received from the planners in the particular local government, not because the proposal was bad, but simply because it was not in accordance with the current commercial strategy. It has always been the case that planning strategies have needed to strike a balance between flexibility and certainty, however, this is insufficient. Merely striking this balance and then freezing that scenario in policy space-time is not the answer. At this stage I do not have an answer either. Somehow there needs to be incorporated within planning strategies a means of ongoing re-evaluation with respect to individual proposals that arise, but are not in accordance with the strategy. The strategy itself needs to recognize that, although its existence is very important, it does not represent the only feasible way of doing things. It is in fact very poor strategy to be blind to positive unforeseen possibilities that might arise. How can such flexibility, allowing for new possibilities and the application of intelligent commonsense, be incorporated in a meaningful strategy? Would the facilitation of such flexibility make having a strategy pointless? 01 March 2003 |
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ts@shrapnel.com.au
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