Common planning laws !

Sydney can be a frustrating place to get almost any sort of planning decision approved.   The problem is that the city is divided into a mix of individual councils and they all have their own laws and by-laws that are often in sharp contrast to one another.    Council decisions are needed to decide matters of transport policy, policing, economic development and housing standards - and what is permissible in one council area may be totally rejected in another - just a few streets away.

This situation is a hangover from the days when Sydney suburbs were little more than distant villages from the city centre.  It was the job of the local council to set aside somewhere for the locals to dump their rubbish, fix the pot holes in the street system - and before sewerage - organise the " night soil " removal.   Each council was a valuable source of jobs for their residents.

London had the same problem and fourteen years ago it concentrated decisive powers in what became the GLA - the Greater London Authority.  It was decided that if London was to be a world class capital it needed a degree of uniformity to replace the huge mish mash of rules and regulations that applied in each individual council area.   There is consensus that the GLA  has achieved that objective.

Now the same thinking is being focused on Sydney.   It is an idea that will not be universally popular with many residents.  It will mean a loss of identity - and sacrificing control of local decisions for the public good. Many restrictive by-laws intended to soothe local wishes will have to go and planning decisions on a city wide basis will introduce change that is not universally popular.    Such is the price of achieving an efficient planning regime.

If the introduction of a GSA - a Greater Sydney Authority - is to happen it will only be a continuation of the passage of power from councils to the state government that has been in progress for years. Both the Federal and state governments have turned councils into instrumentality's to process functions that they no longer wish to administer - and at the same time - remove council power from areas which governments consider " essential services ".

Council amalgamations have been a long term objective, usually against the wishes of ratepayers who fear loss of control input.   That same objection will cause many to oppose a GSA and it could become a pawn in the game of politics.

How this proceeds will depend on the skill with which it is " sold " to the public !