CEO’s Speech | UDIA TV with Stephen Smith Place Design Group
The Local Strategic Planning Statements process has been a challenging time for many of our members, both Councils and developers alike. As we wrapped up the Greater Sydney LSPS program at the end of last year, we wanted to get a greater understanding of the experiences of local government in putting these carefully compiled statements together. We also wanted to better understand the sentiment on the LSPS and what hopes Councils have for the future of these plans.
Two years’ after kicking off, Local Government and industry is clamouring for certainty and transparency around this new layer of planning. It is time for the LSPS to take its place in the grand scheme of the planning system.
UDIA NSW will be advocating for:
– Better collaboration between State and Local Governments and industry with the goal of identifying and delivering new economic opportunities to LGAs.
– Ensuring the LSPS implementation process does not become a bottle neck in the planning process, but rather enables local controls to reflect current priorities to generate economic opportunities and sustainable development outcomes.
– A reinstated Urban Development Program (UDP) for Greater Sydney to provide a clear line of sight for forward development and infrastructure coordination across each Council area – to help track progress towards the visions and aspirations set out in each LSPS. UDIA’s UDP South West Stage 2 Pilot will bring together, the future development pipeline, monitoring housing supply targets and coordinating and prioritising the delivery of the supporting infrastructure needed to deliver growth;
Together these initiatives will provide a clear planning ecosystem which creates liveable, affordable and connected cities.
It is important that we support Councils in achieving local strategic planning objectives. Councils are on the front line and are uniquely positioned to best understand the challenges of their local community.
Now is the time for the State Government to show it is listening to Councils and the industry, and to harvest ideas from those on the ground. Already, we are seeing a renewed focus from State Government to alleviate the pressure on Local Government, such as, through the establishment of the Planning Delivery Unit, which will act as a “one-stop-shop” for complex planning proposals. The PDU will have the mandate to act across LGAs to deliver large scale redevelopment, such as across the Parramatta Road corridor and to deliver process and cultural improvements across the planning system.
Finding the balance between local character and unifying Councils across the metropolis to create a vision for sustainable and economic urban change remains a complex & difficult task for the GSC and the Department of Planning.
UDIA is looking to help with this mission through the incubation of new technology platforms through our City Life Labs collaborative research program. This includes our Urban Pinboard 3D community consultation platform, our Urban AI Transit Oriented Development synthetic city model, the ArkiCity co-design app for community spaces using Augmented Reality and City Life Analytics – On-line decision support tool that helps visualize a metropolitan region by user-defined liveability criteria and personalized housing affordability thresholds.
With our Research & Development work over the last 3 years these projects are all operational and if you are interested in a presentation of these capabilities please tick the box in the poll which is on your screen now and we can get more information to you and undertake a demonstration if there is more interest in how technology can improve the planning process.
And finally, Local Strategic Planning Statements are intended to create a greater line of sight and connection between the macro and local scale planning scale… the question now is how strongly are we on the path to achieving this goal?
Watch online via YouTube
Download the UDIA – Place Design Group LSPS Insights Report here.