Planning for sustainable change: a review of Australian local planning schemes

Abstract

Sustainable development, defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, has become a global policy objective with particular resonance for planners (WCED, 1987: p. 43). Many international, national, state and regional policy frameworks emphasise the need to improve the environmental performance of cities and regions and to conserve and renew biodiversity. The increasing prospect of global climatic volatility – hotter temperatures, sea level rise, intense storm events, flooding and bushfires, have added a new urgency for planning and design regulations that build community resilience to withstand impacts of climate change (Hennessy et al., 2007).