On Friday last, the Development Consent Authority(DCA) held a reporting hearing to advise Planning Minister Tollner on whether to apply the Darwin Inner Suburbs Area Plan. This is one of a series of plans being prepared currently by Gary Nairn’s NT Planning Commission.
Area PLan’s guide future planning. They are not definitive, but they are future indicative for all of the NT areas they cover. It is important that we get them right for the community.
Regardless of government projections of a growing population, this Area Plan’s ‘Social Infrastructure’ objectives are seriously lacking. They state that there are to be no additional small local parks, sporting grounds, or community purposes zoned land. Indeed, it states that some of such current land, should be taken for other uses.
A member of the DCA asserted that Darwin already has too many parks. We are thankful for earlier planners. Other submitters at the hearing agreed that social infrastructure was not being adequately addressed in the Area Plan.
Despite lengthy ‘consultation’, this Area Plan falls very seriously short of what Darwin needs for its future. It strongly endorses denser residential and commercial opportunities in the inner suburbs. It specifically highlighted for instance, the proposed use of Community Purposes zoned land for more tower residential, on land overlooking the Botanic Gardens; and maps all the Bayview mangroves as for ‘Future Development’.
Other densification/change areas are more generally shaded. A government densification’ policy must mean much more than cramming people in the Tropics with no relief. Such would result in serious social problems with a need for greater policing.
A recent Deloitte Report, available in Darwin, and specific to it, spells out the need for the proper involvement of the community sector in planning for successful growth.
This unbalanced and inadequate Darwin Inner Suburbs Area Plan needs to be withdrawn in the public interest. It seriously fails in terms of the Objects of the NT Planning Act.
Here below is a copy of text of the NT Planning Commissions first Area Plan (Darwin Inner Suburbs Area Plan) as now incorporated into the NT Planning Scheme. – Bad news for open spaces, Community Purposes (CP) Land, and for The Gardens suburb.
Darwin Inner Suburbs Area PLan Ammendment14.25 MB
M A CLINCH
Convener