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Saturday, August 19, 2023
THE LONELINESS OF HOMELESSNESS
LAUNCESTON COUNCIL AND HOUSING
Sunday, August 28, 2022
IT IS CRUNCH TIME FOR PLANNING IN LAUNCESTON!
WHAT LAUNCESTON NEEDS NOW IS CANDIDATES WITH
THE CITY'S CULTURAL LANDSCAPE ON THEIR MIND
Thursday, July 22, 2021
SOME THINGS YOU ALLOW TO EVOLVE
Do we have as planning process or is it quite simply an approval process?
"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
POTENTIAL COMMUNITY CULTURAL ENTERPRISE SITE
Opportunities such as this do not present themselves all that often. These 'buildings' are a part of Launceston's 'cultural landscape' and they are in the condition of changing or transforming into yet another manifestation of that 'landscape.'
There are values to be preserved, opportunities to be explored and heritage to be celebrated. Can Launcestonians stand by and allow 'market forces', fickle as they are, to dissolve into something less than what might be, what could be, possibly what should be?
There is time to start the discourse IF there is the will!
Soon that will be revealed!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Scheme as Presented

Rather than a ‘purpose’, the draft planning scheme articulates a ‘requirement’ to be meet and more specifically to meet two sets of objectives ... “To further the Objectives of the Resource Management and Planning System and of the Planning Process as set out in Parts 1 and 2 of Schedule 1 of the Act … and ... To achieve the planning scheme objectives set out in clause 3.0 by regulating or prohibiting the use or development of land in the planning scheme area.” It would be more useful, and more appropriate, to head this statement 'Legislative Context' – and immediately after the 'Statement of Purpose.'
Interestingly, the list of individuals, organisations, businesses, corporations, institutions, etc. that are not required to comply with these objectives would be very short. Arguably there would be none that the scheme would address itself to.
While statements of purpose may appear within the draft scheme's zoning and codes they do not cover the necessity for the scheme to have an overarching purpose as a reference for the assessment and application of the scheme. A planning scheme needs to purposeful!
By its own definition, the ‘purpose’, as stated in the document, fails the relevance test given that it is stated that it is an ‘objective’ and at the same time fails to articulate the scheme’s purpose for being.
As a strategic document, and one that is intended to have strategic utility, its purpose must be both clear and unambiguous. Indeed the document’s purpose needs to be articulated within the document and provide the discipline of a referential overlay that its various elements need be demonstrably fit for and consistent with the overarching ‘purpose’.
Clearly, simply meeting objectives does not do any of this. While ‘planning’ is primarily about achieving objectives and goals these objectives, in order to be meaningful, the process needs to be purposeful.

In so much as a fire bucket is useful in extinguishing a fire this objective can only be realised by someone with the intent of extinguishing the fire and the competence to do so. By itself the bucket can neither ignite nor extinguish a fire albeit that it has the potential to play an important part in either role depending upon the intent of the user.
Arguably the purpose of something like a planning scheme is relatively subjective and open to conjecture. Nonetheless, to be meaningful, such a scheme needs a clear purpose and ideally one that is inclusive and one that fulfils a set of needs identified by the community it is designed to serve.
Given that in a ‘community’ it is generally recognised that there is a need to regulate and facilitate development, as well as one to maintain and preserve the wellbeing of a Community of Ownership and Interest (COI), one would expect to find some of these words in a ‘Purpose for Being Statement’ in order to meet the governance needs of a Council in accord with its constituency’s needs and aspirations.
Purpose is a matter of policy. A key benefit of a well defined Statement of Purpose is that it focuses an organisation's /community's energies and clarifies its raison d’être.
To the extent that the draft document inadequately articulates a clear and unambiguous purpose it demonstrates that thus far it has not been designed to meet governance needs or community aspirations. Rather it bears all the hallmarks of being driven by administrative imperatives. Indeed, it is clear that thus far it has been prepared in isolation from its Community of Ownership and Interest (COI), and arguably within a framework that is insulated against COI input.
The schemes statement of purpose might read something like as follows:
"The purpose of Launceston City Council's planning scheme is to:
- Regulate the development of the city in an equitable an orderly manner;
- Facilitate the ongoing development of the city's infrastructure and services;
- Promote social cohesion while building upon the city's social and cultural capital;
- Maintain and preserve the city's heritage values; and
- To do these things while paying respect to the municipality's cultural placescapes and cultural landscapes; the environmental values invested the municipality; and the ecosystems these things depend upon."
The Scheme's Objectives & Goals

It is assumed that the objectives as set out have some veracity and utility. However, this may not always be the case, as it seems that thus far they have been framed in isolation from the scheme’s Community of Ownership and Interest (COI). Likewise, the scheme does not articulate its status as a policy document.
If the scheme’s objectives and goals were to be individually tested against an unambiguous raison d’être almost certainly a need would be found to either revise or amend various items – and very likely, add further objectives and goals.
In respect to the scheme’s overarching purpose it is not possible to test the objectives/goals set out against its purpose given that the scheme articulates its purpose as simply meeting a legislative requirement – and that requirement is in a state of flux. In the case of a purposeful planning scheme it is possible to do this test. Sadly this is not so with this draft scheme, except speculatively.

To the extent that there is no articulated ‘Purpose’ it is difficult for readers to back reference and contextualise the objective/goal in relationship to an issue in hand and the planning process – ideally a process that goes on well before a plan is presented to Council for approval.
What is missing from this section of the documentation is an articulation of the ‘Strategies’ that will be used to bring about a targeted outcomes. Neither does the draft scheme put many of the necessary tools in professional planners' hands or tools that would assist in marketing the planning process and/or the scheme's raison d’être.
All this seriously impinges upon the document’s utility as a policy instrument in that it does not offer enough guidance to developers and external planners in developing a project that is best able to comply with the scheme. While it may be true that a developer will typically test the extremities of any planning scheme clarifying policy imperative is likely to remove at least some of the tension in contesting various interpretations of the scheme.
Indeed, there is a strong case to be put that the document needs a flowchart that demonstrates the process of initiating a project/proposal and how it will be progressed through the approval process, and by whom, and within what time-frames, in order to facilitate target outcomes with greater efficiency and effectiveness – and in the end amicable compliance.
In order to be an effective civic document a planning scheme needs to be able to be interfaced with other Council policies and Council's marketing of its programs and strategies.

Scenic Management

Collectively, the people making these judgements might be better understood as a site's, neighbourhood's, placescape's, precinct's and/or a landscape's Community of Ownership and Interest (COI).
In respect to ‘Scenic Management’ [1] • [2] , Launceston’s Draft Planning Scheme makes a set of assumptions that are arguably overly simplistic and largely unhelpful for a planning purpose that aims to deliver well-being outcomes to the municipality's constituents. For example, the points from which the ‘scenic values’ are assessed from are typically remote vantage points – that is geographically remote and by-and-large bureaucratically remote as well.
Given all this it must be acknowledged that the issues related to scenic management are more complex (more layered?) than those the scheme seemingly aims to address – and from the narrow perspective that it does.
Given this, there is a case to be put that this component of the scheme is inadequate to contemporary understandings of, and community expectations of, civic planning issues and current concerns relevant to good civic planning in a 21st Century context – along with the social and cultural issues a planning process needs to embrace.
That said, mono-dimensional bureaucratic assessment is of little or no assistance to a planning scheme that aims to avoid, rather than promote, the adversarial resolution of disputes – that is characteristically granting, or not granting, approval for contentious projects/development and standing back to wait for objections. A multi-dimensional cum multi-layered approach might well be one that takes account of ‘scenic issues’ from a distance, and at close quarters, and simultaneously accommodating different and divergent sensibilities – social and cultural.
A more inclusive and holistic approach to Scenic Management may well take account of various vantage points on 'low ground' and likewise from 'high ground' vantage points. 21st Century technologies facilitate a site's/precinct's COI assessing landscape planning issues via the Internet. This access is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

For instance, ‘Scenic Management Areas’ in the draft scheme are bounded, and almost incredulously, by ‘hard borders’ which has the effect that a tall tree on the non scenically managed side of the ‘border’ is strategically deemed by ‘the plan’ to be outside the area of management. That is even if it is a significant feature on the scenic skyline that the plan aims to ‘protect’ – and one that is a valued landscape feature within the placescape/precinct/street/district/neighbourhood/landscape.
This may mean that a development on one side of a fence can proceed without planning restrictions or a need for consultation with near residents. It might have buildings with brightly coloured reflective surfaces while all the vegetation on the site may be removed – and with impunity. Yet on the other side, a totally contrary set of planning restriction will apply. This can happen, it would seem, without the precinct's and other placescape's other property owners having an opportunity to comment on a proposed development and its fitness for the cultural placescape and cultural landscape it will be a part of. This kind of development may well have a negative impact upon the amenity of the place/precinct – environmental, social and cultural – and an impact upon property values as well.

This instance is an exemplar of the overly simplistic perspective 'scenic management' is viewed from in the draft scheme. Here the scenic vista from Town Hall is privileged over and above cultural placescape and cultural landscape perspectives – if indeed they have been considered at all. Arguably, they appear not to have been taken into account.
To compound the issues/problems here the 'operating sensibilities' are likely to change over time as personnel within Council change and offer different subjective assessments of the issues. Likewise, the property ownership matrix is likely to change also bringing different sensibilities to bear on cultural placescape/landscape perceptions.
Arguably all this is problematic, anomalous and divisive even in worst case scenarios. It also points to a class of weaknesses within the Draft Planning Scheme and that arguably should be addressed in the plan given that these weaknesses have seemingly been either overlooked or ignored thus far.


Planning and Communities of Ownership and Interest

All too often a COI's shared ownership and interest is down played and may even be belittled or denied, particularly when contentious or complex issues are involved. Community planning typically bumps up against competing interests in a placescape and/or landscape. However, recognising the layerings of ownerships and interests, and the social cum cultural dynamics involved, can offer a way forward in dispute resolution – ideally local governments' planning processes need to engage with Communities of Ownership and Interest.
If we listed items that had a COI we would include items and locations that were owned by the public – public places and spaces – such as a park; a street and/or a neighbourhood; a river, a monument and/or memorial; an institution and/or a heritage building; a museum; a water supply and/or a forest; a festival and/or a ritual; clearly the list is as endless as the kinds of attachments – economic, social & cultural – people have for places, things and events.
Indeed, individuals within a place’s/event's/space's COI will almost certainly have multiple layers of ownership and interest in it. The ‘truth’ in the ownership and interest here is ‘cognitive,’ a matter of ‘lore’ rather than ‘law’ – that which is taught; hence to do with wisdom; concerning cultural knowledge, traditions and beliefs. It pertains to cognition, the process of knowing, being aware, the acts of thinking, learning and judging. If we take a placescape as an exemplar, placescapes are to do with cognition – musing; the contemplative; the meditative. Albeit imperfect 'lore is determined subjectively.

If we look at courts, then they are to do with power over conduct; enforcement and authority; control and regulation, guilt and innocence – none of which have much relevance to do with musing places, nor much to do with musing per se. Courts look for guilt or innocence corroborated by evidence. Albeit imperfectly, 'law' is determined objectively.
Furthermore, members of the COI should be understood as having both rites and obligations commensurate with their claimed ownership, expressed interest and their relationship to say an institution and its overall enterprise; a placescape and those who share it; a landscape and those with whom they share a role in shaping and managing it; etc.
A member of the COI may also be referred to as a “stakeholder” but stakeholdership in its current usage has generally come to mean a person, group, business or organisation that has some kind vested or pecuniary interest in something or a place. All too often stakeholderships are contentious and in some scenarios they may even be blighted by conflicts of interest given the ways the 'convention' has been used more recently.

It is just the case that for a placescape say, the COI mix, when assessed from outside and within, is intentionally, functionally and socially more inclusive. That is more inclusive than say a list of stakeholders drawn up in respect to a development project that governments – Local, State & Federal – typically make decisions about.
Stakeholder groups and Communities of Ownership and Interest are concepts with kindred sensibilities – law and lore, the former reinforcing the latter. Nonetheless, they engage with different community sensibilities and dynamics; with different expectations and different relationships – even if sometimes many of the same people have a ‘stake’ in something as well as other relationships as a member of a COI.
Planning processes that do not pay due attention to Communities of Ownership

Analogous to a family, if like in a family the interests and aspirations of individuals, all of them together and at once, are not adequately taken into account the family may remain as an entity albeit as a dysfunctional one – and one of a kind that is unplanned.
Zonning and Codes

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.

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

The Paradigm
Faced with such demands, Council Officers, and a Local Govt's Aldermen/Councillors, should be looking for new ways to evaluate their performance – in particular Aldermen/Councillors evaluating their own performance and the performance of their service delivers. Strategic planning documents such as planning schemes are instruments of governance and likewise they are very useful tools in this regard.
Social Atlases and Audits give an understanding of the administrative paradigm and the information it uses to make decisions. They do so from the perspective of the vast majority of people in the society for whom the very foundation of Local Govt is legitimised. Social Audits of administration means understanding the administrative system and its internal dynamics from the perspective of:
- What they mean for the vast majority of people;
- The people who are not essentially a part of Council or its machinery; and
- The people for whom they are meant to work for.
Current Data Sources
Currently Council seems to rely very heavily upon the work of the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) and its Social Atlases.
While Social Mapping has become much more sophisticated in recent times and likewise both the quantity and quality of information available from the ABS has increased exponentially over time. Nonetheless, good planning needs more and more information to meet current community demands and expectations.

Launceston, 25 years ago, was considered one of Australia’s least multi-cultural cities. At the time, one of the ways this was demonstrated was by the makeup of public service staff in the city – University, Hospital and Council in particular. Cultural diversity, or cultural sensitivities and sensibilities, hardly figured in planning processes of the time. Indeed in some respects there was an antithesis towards multi-culturalism.
However, the situation has changed quite dramatically for the city and especially so for the university, hospital and council. This cultural shift is not currently reflected in Launceston City Council's elected representatives – but it needs to be said that this is pretty much the case nationwide. This may be problematic in so much as planning for Launceston may not reflect the dynamics of the city's current cultural makeup and diversity.
Indeed it is some time since a cultural survey/audit was attempted for the municipality – and perhaps not looked at all from a regional perspective.
The possibility that the perception 'at Town Hall' is that planning decisions can still be made within the kind of 'old paradigm' – Eurocentric paradigm? – but it needs to be discounted in order to better reflect current sensibilities. Given that a great many of the city's culturally diverse residents are temporary residents – students, contract employees etc – are increasingly key players in the city's economy, new cultural paradigms need to be embraced within the city's planning strategies if its planning processes are to be 'purposeful.'
The Draft Planning Scheme is relatively silent in regard to the cultural dimension of the city's planning imperatives. Given that the city is increasingly less dependent upon 'industry' for its economic base, thus arguably, the city's planning needs to be increasingly 'culturally oriented' – a celebration of the city's cultural realities.
- Initiating local community driven Social and Cultural Audits to supplement consultant driven audits and surveys;
- Reflecting cultural imperatives in the city's planning; and
- Providing guidance in regard to the city's planning via its Zoning and Codes.