Planningtas

1. PUBLIC SUBMISSION
M. J. Latham
16 San Francisco Street
Midway Point, Sorell, Tasmania
Re;
The Legislative Council Hansard Tuesday 11 October 2005
PLANNING SCHEMES SELECT COMMITTEE
That a select committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon planning
schemes and planning scheme amendments, with particular reference to -
the extent to which the requirements of the Land Use Planning and
Approvals Act provide guidance in the preparation, assessment and approval;
the relationships between the community, councils and the Resource
Planning and Development Commission - RPDC - in the preparation,
assessment and approval; and
the role, procedures and practices of State agencies in the preparation,
assessment and approval.
I comment; arising from my ongoing concern for the conservation maintenance
and proactive community development of this island(s) regardless of our
statehood, current political organisation and development coordinations.
It is time. We hold a small place with considerable diversity. The population
has grown such that what once was boundless is now limited. Like other
places we are here with what is somewhat a microcosm of the obvious urgent
global concerns; exhaustion of resources and the supplanting of individual
proprietary and culture with corporate pragmatics and impositions.
Any courteous Tasmanian country community dweller will agree, particularly
with regard to residential circumstance; if any individual is shown to be
wrongfully inconvenienced by well intended politico-bureaucratic decision, then
the individual should be compensated at least with public and personal
apology. The sustainable Tasmanian residential lounge located in rightful
community and countryside is a key to healthy everything. The sense of
individual ownership and rightful place is the pinnacle of all things important
to our politics and planning.
The past patterns of our development planning are tangled with our present.
The attitudes toward land use have been based on cultural and political values
different from today’s; there have been British Bulldog grants and class
consciousness laid over the ways of the likes of King Billy.
Where well intended developers are frustrated as to go-ahead, or timely
respectable reasons to cease, there is issue with the politics. The significance
of whole of island(s) politics in development and conservation is now very high;
as there is no other way to coordinate our diverse valuables, be they mineral,
aesthetic, untouchable or whatever. However, and I say this loudest, the
ownership of place by local community is supreme. Whereas this local
ownership (along with political supremacy) may be modified by agreements
within regions and beyond, it must always be properly acknowledged that it is
the heartbeat of healthiest community. This does not deny room for
complementary global village life, but rather supports it.
Some development ‘projects’, whether they be built or planning projects, are
projects of whole of island(s) (or state) significance. Simultaneously however,
because all projects affect locale and ownership, they are also projects of

2. regional significance and again of local significance. The local significance,
recall, is our supreme goal in planning; the healthiest way of life and in fact one
that, with local cultural idiosyncrasies, suits finely for home interactivity and
tourism here.
Local people, empowered, will best protect and enhance environment from all
points of view, including the points of view of the whole island(s) population
(only so much can be done about organic endemic issues from within a
fluorescent lit box).
I have extremely limited time to get my message across. Structures in part
exist to source and interpret environmental and economic values through these
aspects of politics. These structures and their right of veto must obviously hold
the right of the residential lounge supreme. They should not operate as levels
of government with one on top.
It is time. It is very urgently time, for a select committee to take broad-scale
comment and advice to restructure and re-educate our objectives in planning
and to ensure as far as it is possible that planning law is merely the servant of
colloquially drafted objectives based on up-to-the-minute evaluations and the
voices of people at home.
I hope in my haste that you have caught my drift. Planning is environmental
architecture. Thankyou for this opportunity.
Monte John Latham, Debox_Degrid Architecture