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Australian Urban Land Use Planning: Principles, Systems, and

Practice (Second Edition)

Article  in  Urban Policy and Research · December 2012

DOI: 10.1080/08111146.2012.729686

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Tayanah O'Donnell
Australian National University
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Australian Urban Land Use Planning:

Principles, Systems, and Practice
(Second Edition)
a
Tayanah O'Donnell
a
Inst it ut e of Cult ure and Societ y, Universit y of West ern Sydney,
Sydney, Aust ralia

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Book Review

Australian Urban Land Use Planning: Principles, Systems, and Practice (Second
Edition)
Downloaded by [Tayanah O'Donnell] at 20:05 19 October 2012

Nicole Gurran
Sydney, Sydney University Press, 2011, 322 pp., ISBN 978 1 920899 77 6

The first edition of this book was published in 2008. This subsequent edition also provides
an excellent summation of land use and planning principles, policies and laws within
Australia, with particular attention being paid to the east coast and the Australian Capital
Territory. It primarily examines the statutory frameworks within which planning—
particularly land use planning—occurs, placing primary importance on the New South
Wales planning system. It also extends this analysis to strategic planning issues and
outcomes. Overall, it provides this foundational planning system framework in a clear,
detailed and methodical manner, readily accessible for both the legal and non-legal
audience. Accordingly, it is particularly beneficial for relevant policymakers and students
studying land use planning, as well as administrative decision-makers and lawyers who are
new to planning law.
The book is usefully structured into three sections. Section 1 provides a detailed
historical review, which provides the context on key principles of statutory land use
planning within Australia, and compares these to some international counterparts. Section
2 examines Australian planning systems in more detail, outlining and discussing the
discrete features and processes involved from start to finish in the land use planning
administrative process, including the specific legal and policy frameworks. Finally,
Section 3 identifies emergent key policy areas relevant to the future of land use planning,
analysing local environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation,
and housing affordability. This structure makes for easy navigation of the text. The book is
well illustrated with a number of photographs depicting housing and other urban issues in
the pictorial sense, helping provide the reader with an appropriate context in which to
relate the discussion and analysis.
Importantly, the text provides excellent summaries, in layperson language, of pertinent
legislation and regulations relevant to planning and environmental law, notably in Chapter
7, which outlines specific legal and policy frameworks utilising New South Wales as a
case study. It includes a thorough review of the administrative and legal matrix, along with
a useful discussion of the role and importance of State Environmental Planning Policies
(SEPPs). Despite the current legislative review of the Environment and Planning
Assessment Act (1979) perhaps requiring a further edition of this book (or, certainly, this
0811-1146 Print/1476-7244 Online/12/000001-3
 2 Book Review

chapter) to address the expected significant changes (duly noted by the author at page 145),
it provides the interested person a method with which to understand how and when to
navigate the complex and numerous laws, policies and local council documents relevant to
planning law and policy. Chapter 8 addresses development controls and environmental
assessment, and takes a similar approach to Chapter 7—methodical, detailed and
thorough. However, whilst some of the pertinent social and political issues relevant to
these aspects of planning are raised, the author chooses not to deal with them here in
greater detail, resulting in perhaps a missed opportunity to more critically address the
potential impacts of these issues. Despite this, these chapters may, in particular, be useful
for university students studying planning and environmental law, as they provide a useful
and methodical overview, somewhat contextualised by the inclusion of pictorial prompts.
For the policymaker or other relevant decision-maker, Chapter 8 also provides a useful
Downloaded by [Tayanah O'Donnell] at 20:05 19 October 2012

‘further reading’ list.

The recurring theme of providing the social context in which to situate the legal
principles ensures this text remains accessible to a wide audience. Importantly, it identifies
the competing socio-political landscapes at various scales of planning governance in
Australia, noting that at the local government level in particular, such socio-political issues
can result in widely differing interpretations and approaches to planning, which will
continue to “shape the evolution and reform of planning policy and practice” (p. 142 and
following).
This book balances its theoretical underpinnings quite well. While recognising the
current neo-liberal realities that have prevailed within planning systems in Australia since
the 1990s and the role capital market systems have had in shaping the direction of planning
in Australia, it gently reminds the reader of the integral importance of social equity within
the urban landscape. In this way, it provides a thorough analysis of planning as a system
whilst creating a basis for an alternative future path for urban planning and policy. This
historical background and context provides the reader with a solid platform from which to
engage with the central theme the book proposes: how can planning adopt and promote
greater social equity?
In this regard, Section 3 identifies contemporary themes pertinent to planning:
environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and affordable
housing. The relevance of local level, place-based planning is further addressed in
Chapter 9, which critically analyses the policy context with respect to ecologically
sustainable communities. It provides a good background into the history of environmental
sustainability in the context of planning policy, with particular reference to the balancing act
between ensuring biodiversity and conservation, and urban growth and development paying
particular attention to urban form. From page 224, the remaining chapter sets out a variety of
‘planning in practice’ examples, including ‘real life’ examples from a range of localities
within Australia. These examples encompass a wide range of options available to the
decision-maker who is seeking to implement environmentally sustainable measures.
Chapter 11 addresses housing affordability. The author recognises that housing issues,
particularly availability and affordability, are most likely to be addressed by a local policy
framework that takes into account changing population demographics. Again, the
theoretical underpinnings of social equity are prevalent, and the author notes the
fundamental importance of strong and strategic leadership at the State government level as
a significant barrier to strategic policy development in this area, stating: “ . . . due to the
lack of a strong legal framework for addressing affordable housing in state planning law,
 Book Review 3

local government initiatives in protecting, promoting and securing affordable housing

during development processes remain patchy” (p. 268).
Chapter 10 addresses the significant and multi-faceted issue of climate change
mitigation and adaptation, in so far as it relates to planning law, focusing primarily on risk
management strategies which give equal weight to both mitigation and adaptation
measures, and that can be implemented into various planning policies. Further, it outlines
principles that could guide planning principles in light of the lifespan of buildings, and
notes that for strategic planning in particular, the impacts of climate change for both
individual locales and broader environmental sustainability agendas are an “ethical
challenge” and a “moral imperative” for which planning has to “protect [the] quality of life
for future generations” (p. 244).
Overall, this book provides a clear, methodical and thorough analysis of planning law
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and policy in Australia, useful to those with an interest in urban issues.

Tayanah O’Donnell
T.Caldarella@uws.edu.au
Institute of Culture and Society
University of Western Sydney
Sydney, Australia
q 2012 Tayanah O’Donnell
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2012.729686

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