A new planning system for NSW: Comments and review of green paper

Abstract

The comments and review of the NSW Planning Green Paper in this paper use the perspective of a development economist such as from the World Bank. This contrasts with the Green Paper’s legalistic point of view. The paper begins by partly reframing the Green Paper’s stated objectives of planning. It then analyses the roles and power of the stakeholders that the Green Paper would have participate in the planning decision process describing in turn: individuals, political representatives, special interest groups, private sector industry representatives and finally the role and powers of expert professions. The next section highlights the natural, regulatory, and financial constraints that operate on decisions in the planning process. It then describes the outcomes of planning by the government, focussing on land use and the provision of public infrastructure services. Then the mechanisms of planning are discussed with emphasis on the needed analytical resources, namely data, modelling, sector analysis, and benefit cost analysis, subjects barely covered in the green paper. The implementation instruments used to achieve the objectives of the planning process are then discussed divided into physical and financial instruments. Finally there is discussion of the necessary institutional arrangements and governance structures. The emphasis is on the decision making process and how it can be characterized by subject, type and scale. Highlighted here are the characteristics that that distinguish an efficient market from competitive tendering. Financing plans are briefly described and finally the paper comments upon the structure and decision control applicable to the process elements of strategy, plans and projects.