Planning and Community Control
Local Government should be local, accountable and democratic. It should be the place where decisions are made about developments to ensure they are in the communities’ interest. Sylvia is campaigning to keep decision-making about developments with the community. Successive NSW Planning Ministers have given themselves greater powers to overide local councils and communities and have imposed big new residential and industrial developments on us, regardless of their impact on the environment or our neighbourhoods. Across NSW, communities are feeling the pinch as developers donate millions of dollars each year to the governing party and ride roughshod over the interests of communities. Sylvia is working in parliament and with communities across NSW for sustainable development.
Controversial planning laws passed through the Upper House of parliament in June 2008 by just 1 vote.
Greens MP and Planning spokesperson Sylvia Hale said the vote was very disappointing given the widespread community concern about the Bill.
The Bill has been driven by the development industry from day one. It is the government’s reward to big developers for all the money they poured into the NSW ALP’s campaign coffers before the last election. The Bill will damage the state’s environment and heritage. It will further remove the rights of residents to have a say about the way their neighbourhoods develop. It will lead to increased disputes between neighbours and it will open the door for an even greater level of corruption in what is already a corrupt planning system.
This law change is just one of a series of changes to planning law whereby government has sought to take away more and more planning decisions from local government and put them into the Planning Minister's hands.
Other changes haave seen the setting up of special planning panels to again over-ride local councils.
In regards to the 2008 legislation, the Greens moved 94 amendments to the Bill aimed at maintaining existing environmental and heritage protections, removing conflicts of interest and restoring appeal rights. All of the Greens amendments were defeated after the Opposition joined the Government in opposing them.
With property developers donating so much money to the old parties we cannot be confident that state government decisions about local developments will not continue to be tainted by money politics.
The developers lobby are loudly applauding the government’s powers to intervene in local planning decisions because they think it will mean they can get their developments through more easily without having to worry about local community opposition.
The Greens would like to overhaul planning laws to give power back over local decisions to the community and local government.
The Developers Map
The Developers' Map of Sydney, prepared by the Greens and showing
some of the most problematic recent developments is hosted on the
Democracy4sale website and can be viewed here.
Sylvia Hale’s first speech to NSW Parliament, 7 May
2003
Sylvia currently supports many communities fighting
overdevelopment.
Download our
Overdevelopment_Kit.pdf (about 3Mb)
What you can do to help the campaign for community control over development:
Write to the Leader of the Opposition asking the Opposition to promise to reverse the government's amendmnets to the environmental planning and assessment Act.
Write to or ring or visit your local Member of Parliament to express your opposition to the government overriding local community decision making.
Document Actions
Read Sylvia's second reading speech on the Bill: Bullet4
The Greens analysis of the Bill:
Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Bill 2008
EP&A_Exposure_Billbill2008.pdf
Background material:
Analysis prepared for the NSW Greens 19 May 2008
EP&A_Amendment_Bill_2008_-_analysis.pdf
Read The Greens submission on Planning Law reform (Feb 2008)
Greenssubmission.doc
Read The Greens submission on the Exposure Bill (April 2008)
Bullet4 080423_SH_submission_on_exposure_bill.doc
Read The Greens analysis of the Exposure Bill (April 2008)
Bullet4 Greens_Analysis_of_EPAA_exposure_bill.doc
Sylvia Hale MLC Ph. 02 9230 3030 Email: 