Zonning and Codes

The draft scheme as presented by-and-large paints a picture of the status quo tweaked somewhat. It seems to assume that in accord with anticipated relatively slow population growth the pace of change in the city is likely to be equally slow.

While there may be some truth in that assumption economic and social circumstances are prone to dynamic change over short timeframes – especially so to do with social paradigms. This applies to Launceston as much as it may to any community/region of its size in the Western world.

By-and-large the zoning is much the same as they have been for several decades except for some tweaking of boundary adjustments. This seems to reflect changing demographics more than anything else. In some ways this is understandable given the scheme’s need to comply with the State Government’s Resource and Planning imperatives. However, the question that needs to be asked is, what are the local social and cultural imperatives?

Likewise the codes set out in the draft scheme are similarly essentially status quo conventions and regulations. While on the one hand this might be expected, and to some extent reassuring, on the other, it might be taken as stagnation, ultra-conservatism and thus problematic.

Given the pace of change anticipatable in the current socio-economic circumstances it would be more than ‘desirable’ if local government planning schemes started to look at alternative and unfolding development paradigms.

The draft planning scheme is silent on so much but noticeably it substantially avoids anything that might be taken for being proaction in regard to:

1. Cultivating and sustaining cultural placemaking, placescapes and landscapes;
   
2. Water security and/or eco-sensitive water management – case study;
3. Local employment creation or maintenance;
   
4. The decentralisation of energy generation, renewable energy and sustainable energy generation;
5. Resource management and resource recovery;
6. Sustainability in the design of the built and natural environments;
7. Food security and urban/periurban food production;
8. Climate change mitigation;
9. Cohousing and/or Eco-village design criteria and zoning – Swedish exemplar;
10. Community engagement in planning issues;
11. Property sustainability rating systems and their applicability in the region.

Essentially the draft planning scheme lays out what 'The Council’ plans to do while waiting for community objections. This paper cannot do more than alert readers to the paucity of the draft planning scheme and focus on a selection of key issues. It is unlikely that the scheme will be rewritten but there is a real need for it to be rewritten and for it to be more thoroughly researched – and in a 21st Century context.