The Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania (PMAT) thanks the Department of Premier and Cabinet ‘s State Planning Office for the opportunity to comment on the Regional Planning Framework Discussion Paper and the Draft Structure Plan Guidelines.

Regional Planning Framework

The regional planning framework refers to the legislative, regulatory or administrative arrangements that support Tasmania’s three Regional Land Use Strategies (RLUSs) which provide a high-level component of the planning system (see Figure 1).

The State Planning Office wants to create a new framework ready for a review of the three Regional Land Use Strategies. The new framework will govern the scope, purpose, preparation, assessment, declaration, amendment and review of Regional Land Use Strategies.

There is a concern that that the Regional Land Use Strategies to date have been developed by private consultants via non-independent ad hoc processes that have not properly considered ecological, social and economic information.

Structure Planning

Structure Plans for example provide a vision and recommended actions for land use, transport, built form and public spaces in the respective towns for over for example a 20 year period.

The State Planning Office wants to create new Structure Plan Guidelines to assist with the preparation of Structure Plans.

PMAT’s Submission

Our submission covers:

1) What is PMAT;

2) Hierarchy of Tasmania’s planning instruments;

3) What is the Regional Planning Framework?

4) What are the Structure Plan Guidelines? and

5) PMAT’s recommendations.

Recommendations

PMAT’s recommendations are explained in more detail in Section 5 below.

1. The Regional Land Use Strategies and Structure Plans should be created through an independent transparent Tasmanian Planning Commission process.

2. Structure Plans should also be statutory instruments with legislation setting out what they constitute rather than voluntary guidelines.

3. The Tasmanian Planning Commission process should include a 60 day public comment period, where all submissions are made public and with public hearings.

4. The Tasmanian Planning Commission should be responsible for deciding whether a Regional Land Use Strategy or Structure Plan be approved, not the Minister.

5. The Regional Land Use Strategies and Structure Plans must reflect best practice land use planning and meet the highest standards of governance and genuinely comply with Schedule 1 of Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993, State Policies under the State Policies and Projects Act 1993 and State of Environment Reports and their recommendations.

6. Criteria should be developed to ensure that amendments to Regional Land Use Strategies and Structure Plans are not allowed for short-term economic or electoral priorities and that they do not undermine the broader strategic planning framework.

We would be happy to meet to discuss our submission further and for our submission to be made public.

Please confirm that you have received our submission.