art & science of strategic planning in queensland

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10/04/2014 Paul Summers Planning Strategies 1

Art & Science of Strategic Planning in Queensland

Carrying Capacities, Planning & Population in Noosa

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Introduction

Insights into: Measuring the true cost of population growth –

and getting it to one diagram! Art and science of strategic planning – how is

it done? Population caps vs carrying capacities

Presentation based on an older one – but principles still apply


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Measuring the True Cost of Population Growth

Population Growth

Increased DevelopmentCapacity

ExistingCircumstances(benchmarks)

Degradation of NaturalAssets

Increased Demand forCommunity

Infrastructure

+ Increases + Increases

Natural Capital Economic Capital Social Capital

- Red

uces

+ Increases

+ In

crea

ses

- Reduces- Reduces - R

educe

s

+ + =True Cost Of Population

Growth

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Potted History of Strategic Planning in Queensland

Prior to 1980 in Queensland, planning schemes were just about regulation – what you could do where and what process you followed

In 1980, Strategic Plans and Development Control Plans were introduced into the then Local Government Act – the legislation that controlled local planning

Strategic Plans evolved to become a vision together with overall strategic outcomes and implementation criteria for the City or Shire and the various places within it

By 1990, Strategic Plans had become a requirement of the then Local Government (Planning & Environment Act)

In 1998, the Integrated Planning Act removed the requirement for Strategic Plans and in fact prevented these types of instrument being a part of a planning scheme

In other words, Queensland went backwards In 2009, the State re-introduced the ability for schemes to have limited

strategic provisions via the Sustainable Planning Act – a strategic framework In 2013 the State expanded the ability for better strategic provisions We are almost back to where we were in 1990!


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Strategic Plans

To gain an understanding on how these plans are done, we will examine a single location through three periods

An area to the south-east of the town of Cooroy, after de-amalgamation back in Noosa Shire


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COOROY

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1988 Strategic Plan

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COOROY

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1988 Characteristics

Little bit of art, not much science. Where there was vision - it was often of

the rear-view mirror variety: Looked at where we had been – reflected the

zoning scheme (the development control system).

Rarely was serious consideration given to where we were going, where we wanted to be or how we would get there.

Rudimentary development control systems.

Rudimentary tools with which to carry out the task.

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1988 Pluses & Minuses

Positive: It was simple, because it was fairly rudimentary. Didn’t cost a lot to do or to defend the position - there wasn’t much on

which to argue. Negative:

Extensive commitments, but little understanding of what the commitment really meant:

Little serious measurement of environmental capacity to support development.

Little serious measurement of the need for various land use commitments Little serious measurement of the services necessary to provide for those

commitments Little serious measurement of the costs (real or otherwise) of provision of

those services Little serious communication of the real planning outcomes to the community

(not sure we really understood them ourselves) Focus on development control: leaving hard decisions until later Focus on process: less clear on outcomes

COOROY

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20

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Paul Summers Planning Strategies 910/04/2014

Strategic Planning: What It Should Be About

Focused on vision, not process About planning for people and the places

those people live, work and play About what we want as communities, not

what we don’t want Positive, rather than negative Fundamentally about making the hard

decisions early

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Strategic Planning: About Making the Hard Decisions

Planning is about compromise and resolving differences between competing uses.

In planning, as in business, the earlier hard decisions are made the better.

Information is needed to make hard decisions and to choose how, when and what to compromise.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) assists in the gathering and assimilation of data and can be also be used in the analysis and synthesis of information to aid the hard decisions.

The data needed to achieve this is surprisingly simple, but often difficult to come by.

So jumping to 1997 ...

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1997 Strategic Plan (Noosa)

Three critical exercises: Analytical assessments of land’s:

Biophysical constraints Environmental values Suitability for various land uses

Analytical assessments of the infrastructure needed for the projected population/development and the capacity to fund that infrastructure

Consultation with the community on its desires for the Shire and the various places within it.

Next few slides focus on the land-based assessments


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1997 Land-Based Assessment using GIS

Primary datasets: All science

Secondary datasets: All science

Tertiary datasets: Art, with a dose of science

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1997 Primary Datasets

What is the land? Geology & Soils

What form does the land take? Topography (Elevation &

Slope) What’s on the land?

Vegetation

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Paul Summers Planning Strategies 14

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COOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROYCOOROY

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1997 Geology

22 classes Czd Czg J-Kg Qa Qc Qe Qhm Ra Rc- Cedar Pocket

Porphyry R-Jy - Myrtle Creek

Sandstone Rlf -Keefton Formation Rlk - Kin Kin Beds Runl - North Arm

Volcanics Rw - Woondum Granite Ta - Allandale

Arfvedsonite Granite Ti Tp - Pomona Beds

Tv

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1997 Slope

6 categories1. Flat 0-5%

2. Moderate 5-10%

3. Sloping 10-15%

4. Steep 15-20%

5. Severe 20-25%

6. Extreme >25%

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1997 Vegetation

8 types, 32 sub-types

1 Rainforest

2 Ecotonal forest

3 Eucalpyt forest

4 Melaleuca

5 Heathlands and sedgelands

6 Mangroves and saline communities

7 Frontal dunes and foreshores

8 Plantations

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1997 Secondary Datasets

All built from the three primary datasets About the way in which humans:

Use the land; and Value the land.

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1997 Agriculture

7 classes Class A - GQAL Class AT&V - Tree

and vine crops - GQAL

Class B - GQAL Class BS - Sugar -

GQAL Class C1

Class C2

Class D

Derived from soils and slope data (and developing an erosion hazard model and using rainfall data)

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1997 Bushfire

3 classes Extreme bushfire

hazard area Bushfire-prone area Not in a significant

bushfire hazard area

Derived from slope and vegetation data (and developing aspect data and using fire history)

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1997 Extractive Resources

37 resources Of which 14 were

recommended for protection

Derived from geology data (and using slope and vegetation data, together with distance and road suitability data)

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1997 Landslip Hazard

4 classes1. Negligible

Potential2. 3. 4. Significant

Potential

Derived from geology and slope data

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1997 Waterways & Riparian Buffers

4 waterway classes:

1. Shire2. District3. Local4. Tributary

4 riparian buffer classes:

250 metres 100 metres 50-100 metres

(mapped at 75 metres)

50 metres

Derived from soil, vegetation and waterway data , (including status and tidal influence) and developing soil erodibility data

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1997 Other Mapping

All up, more than 30 layers of GIS data were generated. Other key data included: Acid sulphate soils data – derived from

topographic and geology/soils data Flooding – derived from topographic data On-site effluent disposal suitability – derived

from topographic, soils and vegetation data Etc.

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1997 Art & Tertiary Datasets

Art: How the data needs to be combined to produce the tertiary information, which is the plan

Sieve mapping: Starting with the what is known and can be accurately

defined - science Moving towards the things that are less tangible or less

clear – where art is needed to produce a cogent result

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1997 GIS and the Hard Decisions Using the GIS:

Working each end (the known)

Against the middle (the unknown)

Result is that the mapping merges biophysical constraints, environmental values with land use outcomes in a single layer.

Biophysical ConstraintsSettlement

RuralConservation

Land unsuitedfor rural

settlement

Unknown

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1997 Strategic Plan

COOROY

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1988

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Moving Forward in Time, but Going Backwards

With the inability to have proper strategic provisions in plans in Queensland, planning schemes became weaker with less clarity

The integrated outcomes of 1997, had to be disintegrated in 2006 so:

Zoning tools; and Biophysical constraints and environmental values

were put in separate layers The plans became coarser …

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2006 Noosa Plan

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1997

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Population Growth: Is it inevitable? A few years ago

I presented on a question at the Woodford Folk Festival.

We were asked: Population Growth – is it inevitable? Should we just lie back and think of England ...

So I did ...

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Population Caps

Noosa’s so-called population cap doesn’t exist and cannot exist under a Westminster system of government

It has not been and never has been mentioned in any legal planning instrument

It was a political expediency to help sell the message and worked well in Noosa

Outside of Noosa most believe that the population outcomes were a target number set by politicians to which the planners worked

Nothing could be further from the truth. When adopting the final plan component, the pollies didn’t even know the final number

Witness what Queensland’s premier said: ... a population cap was a simplistic solution that would place pressure on the economy. The only

way we could really do that is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals (22/04/2007 - The Age)

6 months later, even her own idea of building a fence, she rejected ...it is my view that we need to actively embrace growth. I note comments early this week from

one of our regional mayors that we should have a population cap. Well I don’t support that, even if I did I don’t think that I can constitutionally erect a barbed wire fence at the border... (16/10/2007 – Speech to Committee for Economic Development of Australia)


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Carrying Capacities Remember the three critical exercises:

Analytical assessments of land’s: Biophysical constraints Environmental values Suitability for various land uses

Analytical assessments of the infrastructure needed for the projected population/development and the capacity to fund that infrastructure

Consultation with the community on its desires for the City or Shire and the various places with it.

The result of measuring all this and putting in place policy consequences could be gauged in Noosa at the time, which was and is still growing albeit much more slowly, yet its water supply, sewerage, roads, etc. etc. were all secured and paid for.

By comparison, we could look at whether the Queensland Government has planned properly over the last couple of decades e.g.

There were frantic episodes with water in the period 2009-2012, as south-east Queensland ran out of raw water for even its existing population!

¾ of the road funding for SEQ for 5 years was expended to build the Pacific Motorway – resulting in a commuter road to Brisbane for northern NSW residents

Queensland has not previously planned well for growth.10/04/2014 Paul Summers Planning Strategies 31

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State Reaction to Noosa’s Planning

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2004 – Former Minister for Local Government & Planning Desley Boyle

Minister Desley Boyle said: Welcome to Queensland, but keep on driving. You might like to live at Toowoomba or Crows Nest, or maybe you'd like to go north to Hervey Bay, or maybe continue right up the coast.

Addressing a group of Gold Coast developers, Ms Boyle said the State's southeast was becoming overcrowded, placing extreme pressure on infrastructure and the environment. She said it was dumb that everyone clustered in the southeast corner when Queensland was so large. (2004 - Courier Mail)

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Conclusions

Good planning relies on art as well as science – recently the art has disappeared and plans have become dry technical instruments.

The term population cap has reached its use-by date and should be dropped – carrying capacity is a far better term.

Population growth is not inevitable – if it was why would the Federal Government need a baby bonus?

Minister Boyle had the right idea and instead of denigrating the approaches carried out by Noosa Council, the Queensland Government should be listening hard.

More information: Visit: www.paulsummersplanning.com.au For a copy of the paper go to the web page and click Presentations &

Publications in the menu


http://www.paulsummersplanning.com.au/

art & science of strategic planning in queensland

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