AILA National Advocacy
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
In August this year a paper appeared titled, Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities – Consultation Draft as a result of a one day event here in Canberra; one in which the AILA has no role.
The following is the AILA’s response which was also sent through to Minister Garrett with a request for an appointment to discuss the issues.
BEMP: Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities
The following is a response to the recent publication “Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities – Consultation Draft”, which was presented for audience discussion at the Built Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) event held in Canberra on 12th August 2009.
As the document appears to have been presented (via this event) to the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts as a supposedly representative, industry-based consultative position on an issue of such national significance, The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) feels it is important to offer an alternative viewpoint for the Department’s consideration.
It is the AILA’s view that the BEMP: Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities could have been so much more - both in the manner in which it has been developed, as well as in the content it purports to convey as representative of the collected views of key stakeholder groups within the built environment, including design professionals.
To assist, key issues of concern have been detailed on the following pages:
- LIMITED REPRESENTATIVE STATUS OF THE BEMP EVENT
The BEMP it is an event-based coalition of paying subscribers set up to lobby parliament at a particular time of the year on issues relating to the built environment.
As such it is not to be confused as being an organizational entity with the status or authority to devise and promote policy on behalf of either industry or built environment design professionals as a whole.
The absence of any clear consultative process for the development of the BEMP: Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities further undermines the credibility of the stated ‘industry-representative’ nature of the views expressed therein. This is a lost opportunity, resulting in a flawed document.
- CONSULTATIVE PROCESS OF DOCUMENT DEVELOPMENT
The document, despite being labelled ‘Consultation Draft”, does not appear to have been produced with reference to a clear consultative process. It does not specify either the consultation framework within which it was developed, nor avenues for key built environment stakeholder groups to engage in review or analysis of what has been proposed.
Stakeholder engagement is a fundamental principle of any planning process, and indeed is even quoted as a “Model Planning Framework Principle” itself (“Principle 3 - Maximise civic engagement – strategic planning must advance community participation and civic engagement”, page 8. ) – yet it appears that this entire document has been generated without the most basic methodology of stakeholder consultation.
- SYSTEMS THINKING METHODOLOGY
The lack of an underpinning consultation strategy in developing this document is immediately apparent in the limitations of its structural approach and content.
While there is emerging national and international consensus amongst built environment design professionals on the need for broader-scale, big-picture systems thinking when developing planning strategies for sustainable communities of the future, the BEMP: Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities unfortunately reflects none of this current awareness.
The ‘targeted performance indicators’ outlined in the BEMP document (pg. 13) propose a range of sustainability parameters - albeit extremely limited and poorly defined - which collectively determine sustainable communities for ‘urban areas’, classifying them under headings as either ‘environmental’, ‘social’, ‘economic’ or ‘governance’ issues.
The structure of the proposed strategic framework appears to infer that by simply ‘measuring’ individual indicators, performance benchmarks & targets can be established against which progress towards ‘sustainability’ can subsequently simply be ‘added up’.
If only planning sustainable communities was that simple.
Unfortunately, however, the challenges involved operate across much broader spatial scales, and encompass far more dynamically complex expressions of built form:
“Human settlement in Australia occurs in small, large and also in sprawling interconnected communities. Individual communities may be in decline. They may be about to expand and join-up in a spate of rapid growth (as may happen on our eastern coastal strip). The size of a community may be inversely related to the size of its relative ecological footprint, or the damage caused to inhabitants – depending on its prevailing form of livelihood, sensitivity of environmental features, the specific impact of climate change there, and other sustainability parameters.
It is thus a narrow view to consider that the challenges of sustainable settlement in Australia relate only to so-called urban development.”
(Built Environment Design Professions (BEDP) National Sustainable Settlement Policy, 2009, pg. 7)
What the BEMP proposed framework does not accommodate is the complex reality of how sustainability influences interact with each other across a range of landscape scales and settlement types.
For example, how decision-making concerning energy, waste, water, transport, green infrastructure, public space & residential communities both impacts upon and is influenced by environmental, social, economic and governance conditions at site, neighbourhood, metropolitan, regional and national levels.
It also does not acknowledge that a collaboratively-based, integrative process designed to understand and creatively manage the dynamic nature of these interrelationships is crucial to developing meaningful, long term sustainability solutions for future communities.
The framework as set out in the BEMP document lacks any mechanism to examine the linkages and connections across different settlement scales between sustainability parameters.
Even more critically the document fails to acknowledge the role of design, technology and innovation in addressing the urgent challenges of retrofitting existing human settlements as well as creating sustainable communities of the future.
- A ‘PRINCIPLED’ APPROACH TO SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES?
The stated objective of the BEMP: Principles for Planning Sustainable Communities is “to provide a model, principles-based framework about the shape and form that strategic plans for cities and our communities should take.” (pg. 4).
The term ‘principle’ is commonly defined as an important underlying assumption; a proposition which forms the basis of reasoning or action; a fundamental tenet or truth, etc.
As such, this document could reasonably be expected to articulate the critical values and aspirations which should underpin decision-making on the shape and form of sustainable communities of the future.
Unfortunately the BEMP document assiduously avoids this central issue, choosing to focus virtually exclusively on process and governance issues. As a result, its potential applicability and relevance to broader sustainability outcomes is immeasurably diminished.
It is AILA’s considered position that, at the most fundamental level, a principles-based framework for sustainable communities should rigorously address the essential reality that human settlements are complex, evolving social-ecological systems which are dependent on the health of their associated natural environments for ongoing sustainability.
There are many examples of values-based approaches to planning which respect this basic interdependence and seek to build on its value for future generations – the Melbourne ‘Principles for Sustainable Cities’ provides an excellent Australian model, for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Principles).
The BEMP strategy would have been greatly assisted by referring to such approaches as part of a genuinely collaborative engagement process with the wide range of key stakeholders interested in promoting the development of truly sustainable outcomes within the context of the Australian built environment.
2 September 2009
More about AILA’s advocacy and all that BEDP and BEMP stuff.