Background Studies
These are Council investigations into the technical and infrastructure factors that should influence planning decisions in a particular area. These studies are standard procedure in major planning projects. Last time around, during the neighbourhood planning process, they were not provided to the community.
What should background studies cover?
Planning decisions of this scale of the Precinct Plan should be informed by a range of technical investigations covering matters such as:
- Traffic and parking
- Flooding and drainage
- Economic and business impacts
- Environmental considerations, including RAMSAR obligations
- Sewerage and stormwater
- Overshadowing and amenity
- Heritage and character assessment
Council has indicated that studies such as this are being done, although at this point we don’t have a list of specifically what will be covered.
What happened last time around?
During the Neighbourhood Planning process between 2019 and 2021, we repeatedly called on Council to provide copies of the background studies in a timely manner, so that we would have the information we needed to provide meaningful feedback to Council on the draft neighbourhood plan. Unfortunately Council’s response was extremely disappointing; release of the promised documents was repeatedly delayed until almost the end of the consultation period, and then we were given only a single document that was barely relevant and did not deal with the specific changes in the draft plan. It appears that Council did not want to provide the documents to us but also did not want to go on the record refusing to provide them.
We are calling on Council to act much more transparently this time around, and we will not accept evasive behaviour like we encountered last time.
Local resident Adam Bowden has already been asking Council about the background reports.