We have a vision for a city that is liveable, sustainable and diverse. This means investing in affordable housing, green space, community facilities, public transport and recreational facilities. It means embracing innovative design and sustainable technologies. It means engaging in meaningful consultation with communities.
By fast tracking development and scrapping good planning guidelines, developers will win over the needs of the community. The government's Urban Growth strategy is a threat to that vision. UrbanGrowth NSW has no targets for affordable housing, sustainability or open space. There are no guarantees that these new and expanded neighbourhoods will have the critical infrastructure they need such as schools, sporting fields, medical facilities or public transport.
The Greens believe we need to protect the communities and places we love, and all of that all starts with democratic, sustainable and smart planning.
The planning system in NSW is an undemocratic mess.
A complex tangle of laws ties communities up in knots while delivering endless loopholes for developers. More and more decision-making is being removed from local councils and delivered instead to state government ministers and bureaucrats who’s only interest is the dollar value of the development. The end result is unplanned, disconnected development with poor transport, high energy demands and crippling prices.
Both the old parties have failed on planning.
Corporate donations and influence peddling under NSW Labor dragged the planning system into disrepute. Labor delivered the now notorious Part 3A of the planning laws has allowed the planning minister to approve literally any development, anywhere in the state, regardless of the local planning laws. If ever there was a corruption-ready law, that was it.
The Greens are committed to returning planning power to communities.
We do this because we trust people to make the right decisions for their communities. This includes in developing and implementing long term planning strategies that can’t be bypassed by cashed up developers.
For this planning system to work it must be built on the three pillars of ecologically sustainable development, giving full weight to each; the environment, society and the economy. Done well, planning can produce wonderful places to live, work and recreate while not costing the earth.
Some of the most densely settled parts of our cities and townships are also the most liveable and sustainable. The terrace houses and semis built last century in Sydney, Newcastle and regional towns across the state deliver density on a human scale with low energy housing, pedestrian connections and enviable public and active transport.
Unlike the old parties the Greens work for the people who elect them, not the corporations that finance them.
The Greens believe in applying the best planning lessons of the past while marrying them to the renewable energy solutions and digital connections of the present. We can have green open space, active transport, affordable and sustainable housing and close connections to work. We just need to give ourselves the power to make it happen.
The Greens have always stood with communities on the front line of development issues. It is a track record we are proud of. It builds on decades of progressive actions from Jack Mundey’s Green Bans of the 1970’s and 80’s right through to today’s struggles for green space and railways before highrise and motorways.
