Brunswick Residents Network fully endorses the views set out in a recent article in The Conversation:
 
“Planners need to engage with communities and hear from them about their lived experience to better understand and measure their quality of life, their health and their neighbourhoods’ liveability. Objective measures of the quality of access should be accompanied by insights from residents about their lives in the suburbs. The voice of residents needs to be included in the planning of our cities as they grow, as well as the metrics of how successful we are in delivering equitable cities that foster healthy, affordable and prosperous lives for all.” 

 

Unfortunately, Moreland Council  –  once again – is heading in the opposite direction, with their latest “Design Excellence Scorecard.” 
 
At their February meeting, Moreland councillors adopted a “Development Excellence Scorecard.” In a triumph of marketing, this scheme has been rebranded from “fast track” in 2017 to “design excellence” in 2019, to cover the reality that it will limit input from residents and their elected representatives in planning decisions.
 
The Scorecard first came before Council in 2017 as the “Fast Track program”, with the objective of fast tracking development projects of ‘architectural and environmental’ merit. Developers who submit appropriate designs are rewarded with fast tracked approval and construction, with decisions being taken by Moreland Council staff without the need to seek approval from elected Councillors. The fast track development program was brought again before Council in early 2018 as the “Quality Design Scorecard” and finally adopted as the “Design Excellence Scorecard”, approved at the Council meeting on 13 February.
 
The benefit to developers, according to council staff, is “increased certainty and time savings in the permit process, created by guaranteed decision making under delegation.” The quickest way to speed up the planning process is to remove residents from the planning loop. Council staff claim that there will be “no changes to public consultation and no change to consultation meetings with residents”. However, in response to questions at the February Moreland Council meeting, Acting Director City Futures Phillip Priest acknowledged that: “The only way to fast track the system is to remove public consultation.”
 
BRN obviously supports the idea that new buildings should be better constructed and more environmentally sustainable. But we have significant concerns that the Scorecard process takes more planning decisions on major projects behind closed doors, and allows non-elected officials to trade off issues like height and set-backs. 
 
The use of such planning tools is part of a broader pattern promoting industry self-regulation, which has left Victoria with disasters like the use of non-regulation cladding. Fast-tracking in NSW contributed to the Opal Tower disaster in Sydney, which has left owners and renters with massive costs, as builders, developers and building surveyors blame each other for poor construction.
 
According to the report on the Scorecard prepared by Council staff, industry professionals such as planners, architects, developers, builders, engineers, ESD consultants, access consultants and academics were consulted in the development of the measure. However, Moreland Council failed to consult with resident groups in Brunswick, Coburg or Fawkner. The input of buyers was another obvious omission.
 
The most significant failing is that the Scorecard will open up a unique avenue of permit approval particularly for multi-unit developments. No other council in Victoria has such a planning mechanism, so again Moreland becomes the guinea pig. It seems Moreland Council has given up its policy of seeking mandatory planning controls, and fallen back on trying to encourage developers to do the right thing.  
 
In the past, we’ve seen that when the community is excluded from planning decisions, there is usually a trade-off of design features (such as height) that are important to objectors.
 
Another problem is that an individual “scorecard” building may have some design merit in its own right, but will set a precedent on height, setbacks or heritage that other developers will use in VCAT appeals (see for example the long-running dispute between the Nightingale developers and a neighbouring developer, who sought the same exemption over removal of car-parking requirements given to the supposedly superior building next door).
 
Because of lack of mandatory heights in the planning scheme, the Scorecard is void of real definitions of what heights are suitable for each site. Moreland has recently approved a development that is three storeys above the preferred height set out in the planning scheme.  The Scorecard will inevitably become attractive for eight-storey building applications in five-stores areas. If this is set as the acceptable height at a pre-application meeting (or a pre-pre-meeting) between the developer and council staff – then there‘s no way back from that, because the Councillors do not get a say.
 
Appeals to VCAT on height will then have to be funded by the objector, shifting appeal costs from the developers to the community.  For example, if the building should be five storeys according to a Councillor or community, the objectors have to either put up with the 8-level decision or raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to appeal. This Scorecard will effectively discourage objectors from participating at all in the approval process.
 
The Scorecard once again takes decision making within the planning industry bubble – the closed circuit of developers, architectural firms, consultants and Council staff. We believe that planning should be more democratic, and must engage people who have to live with the consequences after the consultants and builders have moved on to greener pastures. Planners need to engage with communities and hear from them about their lived experience to better understand and measure their quality of life, their health and their neighbourhoods’ liveability.