Month: July 2019

Minister calls for a step in the right direction in planning

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All new residential developments in Queensland could have more walkable street layouts, better connectivity, footpaths with street trees for shading, and better access to parks and public open space, following the release for public consultation of a new model code for neighbourhood design.

Healthier urban design

In a move designed to improve health and neighbourhood design throughout the state, Minister for Planning Cameron Dick said the new standards could become compulsory for new developments. 

While the SEQ Alliance welcomes the initiative there are concerns that no mention was made of the new code when the Alliance met with the Ministers representatives only a few weeks ago. Other stakeholders were aware of the initiative but the Alliance was kept in the dark.

Minister Dick said “Our built environment has a huge impact on how active and healthy people are. With some relatively simple improvements to the current planning framework, we can better ensure all new developments are walkable and encourage active living, which will help improve the health of all Queenslanders,” Mr Dick said. 

 “We live in a hot climate and in a recent Department of Transport and Main Roads survey 24 percent of Queenslanders said lack of shade and shelter along their walking route was a major barrier to walking in Queensland. 

“This code is about getting the fundamentals of new development right, creating walkable, grid-like street layouts, better connectivity, footpaths with street trees for shading, and better access to parks and public open space.”

A new code by 2020

Mr Dick said elements of the model code could be become mandatory by the end of 2019. 

“While some councils and developers are exceeding the benchmarks we are setting, we want to make sure all new development meets community expectations,” he said. 

“This will provide greater certainty for the development community about what is expected of new development and ultimately provide better designed communities for home buyers and renters.”

Elements of the code which could become mandatory by the end of the year include: 

  • Grid-like street networks with fewer cul-de-sacs 
  • footpaths complemented by street trees on both sides of most streets
  • street blocks no longer than 130m with longer blocks having mid-block pedestrian breaks
  • parks and open spaces within comfortable walking distance of every dwelling. 

Limited consultation

Heart Foundation Queensland CEO, Stephen Vines, said walking-friendly neighbourhoods were needed to get residents more active and address the state’s growing obesity crisis.

“Too many Queenslanders are missing out on the physical activity they need for good heart health, so we must find ways to encourage residents to get moving and leave the car at home more often,” Mr Vines said.

“Neighbourhood design plays an important role in building healthier communities, and we’re pleased to see this model code includes Healthy Active by Design principles from the Heart Foundation.

“There is a great deal of research that proves better designed communities provide health and economic benefits by encouraging physical activity and reducing heart disease – our biggest killer.”

Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) Queensland CEO, Kirsty Chessher-Brown, said it was important the industry worked together to ensure good health outcomes for all new communities. 

“The design of new communities can have an impact on how healthy and active people are so it’s important we all play our part to support healthier communities,” Ms Chessher-Brown said. 

“The UDIA supports measures that seek to provide healthy and active communities across the state and supports the development of model codes which encourage the provision of walkable environments.” 

Consultation underway

Mr Dick said this was a policy for the community and feedback would be sought on how best to make our communities more active, connected and safe. 

“Whether you live in an inner-city suburb or a remote part of Queensland, this is a policy with benefits for every Queenslander,” he said. 

“I want to hear from all Queenslanders about the challenges they have in their neighbourhoods, from lack of footpaths to poor shading, and what we can do to improve these things in new developments. 

“We want Queenslanders to be able to move easily and comfortably around their neighbourhood. 

Consultation is open until 1 September 2019. To find out more and to have your say visit qld.gov.au/healthycommunities 

To view the new model code go to: https://planning.dsdmip.qld.gov.au/planning/better-planning/state-planning

Town planning – a critical social justice issue

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Melbourne and Sydney could be heading for between eight and ten million people each by 2050.

We are failing to manage this growth by not building sustainable, resilient communities. Indeed, we are at the point where we risk leaving a disastrous legacy for future generations.

Good town planning is often not perceived as a high priority social justice issue in wider society. This may be because issues such as homelessness, income inequality and carbon emissions are considered more immediate, pressing issues. However, good town planning underpins so many of these environmental and social justice issues that ignoring it would be a major setback for creating long-term sustainable, low-carbon communities.

Professor Peter Newman at Curtin University has described our outer suburbs as the “slums of the future” due to their car dependency and vulnerability to oil shocks. Many Australian outer suburbs are also vulnerable as they often rely on the inner-city for employment opportunities and essential services. His solution is to build upwards, not outwards, by means of urban consolidation.

However, this fix has shown to be problematic. Professor Bill Randolph of the City Futures Research Centre at University of New South Wales has described most of the new higher-density developments in inner-city areas as “vertical slums” due to the very poor quality in which many are built, especially as they are aimed at investors and short-term renters rather than providing quality long-term homes.

The truth is that we are building both new outer suburban and high-rise slums in our capital cities at unprecedented rates and the scale is staggering. Melbourne alone will need two million extra residences by 2050. Due to this ongoing urban sprawl, the city’s food bowl could decline from 41 per cent of its current self-sufficiency to 18 per cent by 2050.

There have been so many skyscraper approvals in Melbourne’s CBD in recent years that the density in Melbourne’s centre is higher than the legal limits in Hong Kong or New York — and many town planners predict it will continue to grow. The building standards in Victoria are low by world standards, and many apartments are fitted with potential safety issues such as flammable cladding, imported asbestos and other cost-saving materials.

It costs a lot to house a city that is growing on average by almost 100,000 people per year. It has been estimated that – if national growth predictions are correct – infrastructure costs may amount to at least half a trillion dollars of the Federal budget over the next 40 years. Australia is currently five years behind in the infrastructure required by its current population and needs, which includes schools, hospitals, TAFEs, neighbourhood houses and so on. It is predicted that the Victorian State Government will invest so much in road infrastructure over the next 20 years that there will be precious little for much else — certainly not public transport, which is currently at peak capacity. Most other states are experiencing similar crises with their infrastructure budgets.

It should not be a surprise that big business mostly will not foot the infrastructure bill. Long gone are the days when property developers were required to input infrastructure costs when designing new suburbs. In the United States, for example, prior to WWII, it was a requirement for property developers to build new tram lines whenever they built new suburbs. These days, the public funds new infrastructure projects either through toll roads, rising utility bills or by exponentially rising house prices.

Town planning and inequality

Otherwise, infrastructure costs are paid by our taxes at the expense of other services, such as schooling, health and social services. Of course, property developers and big businesses reap the rewards through ever-rising house prices, propped up by tax incentives such as negative gearing. Given that an entire generation of young people is being priced out of the housing market, current town planning practices are further cementing a future of inequality between haves and have-nots.

There is an environmental cost too. It takes a lot of resources and mining to pour concrete over our food bowls and the impact to local animal and wildlife has been devastating — and will continue to be so.

Good, sustainable town planning results in communities that are permeable and walkable, with easy access to services, jobs, public transport and natural green spaces. These communities offer a variety of housing options, such as medium density townhouses or larger family dwellings to cater for the fact that people have different housing needs and that individuals’ needs change over the course of their lives. Good designs do not create a dichotomy of high-rise vs sprawl, nor do they rapidly demolish existing housing stock, as this creates displacement within communities.

Ideally, new buildings would be designed for high-energy efficiency, be built from sustainable materials, have affordable access to solar panels and rainwater tanks and include co-housing options. There are occasional examples of these initiatives already in our capital cities: Melbourne has The Commons in Brunswick (an eco-friendly high-rise in the inner city) and Murundaka (suburban co-housing). While it’s great they exist, the tragedy is that they are the exception and not the norm and when they do exist, they are often appropriated by developers as an excuse to raise prices and make these places exclusive.

The reality is that unsustainable town planning processes will continue as long as the main drive behind their construction is profit. Why bother putting effort into your investment property when you know it will double in value anyway? Both negative gearing and population stressors on housing supply will make this possible.

Solving our town planning issues

What are the answers? Town planning is a very complex issue and there are as many ideas to solve our issues as there are town planners. These include tiny houses, co-housing communities, permaculture villages — the list goes on. I believe change is not possible without the following:

  1. Significant changes to the following policies: political donations, negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. This would mitigate the lobbying power interest groups have toward government policies on town planning. This includes property developers, the banking sector and individuals of high-existing wealth and capital in the property market.
  2. Increase the power of local government so that communities are empowered to influence town planning decisions within their own jurisdictions.
  3. Town planning policies in which minimum standard practice includes sustainable housing design, co-housing options, as well as access to public transport nodes, natural green spaces, and community services and gardens.
  4. A society that is less focused on “jobs and growth”, and more focused on creating resilient communities that are self-sufficient and contribute, rather than complicate, a path towards a low carbon future. To do so, we will need to have some tough conversations, including a discussion on population policy. It is very difficult to build indefinitely for a country that could be heading towards 42 million people by 2050 and 70 million by 2100, with no endpoint on the horizon. At the very least, population policy should not be influenced by the lobbying influence of big businesses.

Town planning design plays a significant role in the way we live and how we interact with our community and environment. Therefore, good (or bad) town planning decisions have an ongoing effect on many other social justice issues.

Written by Michael Bayliss

Michael Bayliss has been active within environmental and post-growth movements over  the past decade. He co-founded Population Permaculture and Planning (PPP) in 2015 as a means to communicate the critical role that town planning plays in the move towards future sustainable communities. PPP has since delivered workshops to activists and environmentalists across Australia. Michael has been involved with Sustainable Population Australia since 2013, in such roles as Victoria and Tasmania branch president and currently as national communications manager.

(This article was originally published 18/02/2018 for Independent Australia titled:  Growth, infrastructure and town planning: Cementing a sustainable future)

Published by Redlands2030 – 6 July 2019

Proposed Changes to the Brisbane Plan 2014: retirement and aged care

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At the June 2019 meeting of the Alliance, mention was made of a letter sent to Cameron Dick on the changes to the Retirement and Age Care Package of Brisbane City Council (BCC). This exchange of correspondence was suggested for inclusion on the SEQ Alliance website as an example of a letter (well researched and professional) and the response (as an example of an “inadequate” reply).

Dr John Mayze and Michael Wynne who are authors of the letter and they are happy for it to be put o the website for public access.

It is expected a further response will be made, in collaboration with Dr John Mayze, to the inadequate response by Christopher Aston (the response on behalf of Cameron Dick).

Ministerial correspondence on behalf of Ministers is of increasing concern when the key issues are almost dismissed without regard to the arguments and research being put forward.

Letter to Cameron Dick: retirement and aged care


The Honourable Cameron Dick
Minister for State Development Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning
PO Box 15009
CITY EAST QLD 4001
statedevelopment@ministerial.qld.gov.au

cc The Honourable Steven Miles Minister for Health
health@ministerialÆqldÆgovÆau

Dear Minister

Proposed Changes to the Brisbane Plan 2014: retirement and aged care

We write to you as retired medical specialists and a past professional in the planning area on the proposed changes to the Brisbane City Plan 2014 – retirement and aged care amendments package.

The Brisbane City Council recently sought public submissions on these proposed amendments and on 27 November the Council endorsed them. The proposed package has now been submitted to the Queensland Government for final review.

Along with a number of our professional colleagues, we made submissions during the public consultation period. We have concerns about how the matters raised in our submissions were addressed by the Brisbane City Council, and as such, we
contacted a Council town planner who suggested we raise our concerns with you.

The focus must be on best practice

We are concerned that the Brisbane City Council’s proposed changes to the Brisbane City Plan 2014 will not ensure our elderly are accommodated in best practice residential aged care designed with therapeutic benefits as a priority.

Extensive evidence shows that low-set, home-like, non-institutionalised environments with space to roam and gardens for therapeutic value, lead to better outcomes for the health and wellbeing of residents, especially those with dementia.

Our experience and knowledge concerning best practice for management of these patients indicates that the changes to building design included in the Aged Care Code will not deliver best practice.

A need to prioritise aged-care beds

The Council’s amendments package conflates “retirement living” with “aged care” rather than focusing on where the need lies which is the provision of residential aged care beds.

An expert panel within Queensland Health reported that the average wait in hospital for older patients who were ready for discharge but left waiting was 53 days, and the leading reason for this delay (71% of cases) was waiting for an aged care bed.

The Federal Government’s nationally agreed target is for one residential care place for every 12.8 people aged over 70 by 2020/21. The 2016 Census showed there were 475, 749 Queenslanders aged 70 and over which would equate to a target of
37,110 places. As at June 30 2017, Queensland had 36,616 operational residential care places.

Based on those figures, Queensland needs 494 new residential care places by 2020/21 particularly specialist care places for people with dementia or behaviour (disability, mobility, eating, incontinence, medication) requirements.

Further data underscore why all levels of governments must respond to the high-needs nature of people entering aged care:


* Almost 80% of people prefer to age in their own homes so the people who enter residential care (around 7%) are older with an average age of 83 years. Thesepeople require higher-needs care.


* Ninety-two (92%) of patients in these Aged Care Facilities are rated by aged-care providers as requiring High Care which results in the maximum payment from the Federal Government (taxpayers) to the organisations that run these facilities.

* Forty-two (42%) of these patients never receive a visitor in 12 months.

* Slightly less than 60% of patients have dementia and can no longer be cared for in the home environment. As a result of their dementia they are unable to communicate effectively and interact in a normal fashion with other people, so they cannot protect themselves.

Dementia is a mixture of brain disorders that affects thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday tasks which results in brain function being affected enough to interfere with the person’s normal social interactions and working life.


Because a person has dementia it does not mean that they should be confined to their room and heavily medicated to keep them ‘out of sight” and “out of mind”. Many such people are still mobile and interested in what is going on around them.


These people can no longer fend and speak for themselves and as a result cannot make a submission like this to any level of government.

Because we are aware of these problems, we feel compelled to speak up for these frail and elderly patients especially as their needs are inadequately addressed in the proposed amendments as we outline below.

Shortcoming of the proposed amendments package

The Brisbane City Council’s proposed amendments package fails to enshrine best practice aged-care design in the City Plan. In its report in response to public submissions the Brisbane City Council also fails to explain why reasonable suggestions from submitters were ignored and why other positions were supported.

From our review of the proposed changes we believe that:
* There is a clear need to appropriately plan for future residential aged care -not retirement units – in Queensland.
* It is not appropriate to have the same planning code applied to both retirement living and aged care as high-needs residential aged-care must be fit for purpose
and differs markedly from retirement living.
* The design of such facilities must prioritise the health and welfare needs of the people using them over the needs of development proponents.
* The Brisbane City Council must base its decisions on evidence that can be understood and accepted by the community and must not be open to the perception that it is being politically expedient. This only serves to reduce the
trust of concerned members of the community in Government at all levels.
* There is a lack of evidence that those preparing the code have adequate healthcare expertise. To ensure that best practice is being applied it is recommended that the views of an independent third party with relevant healthcare expertise be sought prior to any State endorsement of the proposed amendments package.


With a Royal Commission due to commence next year, the aged-care sector is under intense scrutiny and any decision relating to aged-care development codes
that will profoundly impact the quality of accommodation provided to our elderly, must be approached with the same level of scrutiny.

Recommendation
I request that you do not endorse the proposed changes to the Brisbane Plan 2014 and that you meet with us, management from Brisbane City Council, and other experts from the medical profession to establish what changes need to be made to
the Brisbane City Council’s proposed amendments to the retirement living and aged care package.

Yours sincerely
Dr John Mayze, Dr Michael Wynne and Howard Briggs

Dated 11 December 2018

Minister Cameron Dick’s response (by delegation) is cursory

Despite the best intentions and the expertise being offered no meeting was agreed to and the response sound just like so many other pieces of ministerial correspondence. A follow up letter to mr Ashton is proposed but the response to date gives little to suggest the Minister is open to hearing views contrary to that of his Departmental planning officers.