Councils were stripped of planning powers. This mayor wants to go further

Parramatta’s lord mayor says local councils deserve to have some planning powers taken away because elected officials have been “playing politics” with major infrastructure decisions.

As debate rages over councils’ powers to reject housing and entertainment applications in the face of controversial government reforms, Labor Mayor Pierre Esber told the Herald he believed the number of councillors in Parramatta should be halved, and those left made to work full-time in a bid to “professionalise” the lowest level of government.

Parramatta Lord Mayor Pierre Esber will leave the job in September, but has a few ideas about how the council should be run in future.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Esber – who will retire at the September local elections, meaning Sydney’s second CBD will get its sixth mayor in four years – said the growing number of developments deemed “state significant” meant councils’ powers were shrinking and they needed a “complete restructure”.

The state government last year announced plans to remove some local councils’ power over development approvals amid a worsening housing crisis it says has been brought on by a failure to build enough homes. But the Herald revealed in March that the government was preparing to backtrack on some of its reforms, allowing councils additional time to make plans.

Esber argues Parramatta’s councillors should be reduced to seven or eight full-time representatives who would have more time to consider proposals properly.

“Some councillors play politics with major infrastructure programs and major development programs and just look after some sections of the community,” he said, lamenting the simultaneous loss of authority local government has experienced.

“Over the years, the authority has been taken away from local councils, some of [that] has been good, some of that’s been bad … We looked at government applications from first-floor extensions to high-rise buildings. We don’t see them any more.”

Now, everything is state significant, he said, referring to the government’s newly introduced rapid assessment framework, which gives the state planning approvals for developments over $60 million.

“Some decisions by the state government have to be taken by the state government because they follow the state decisions up with infrastructure, and they’re the ones who do major infrastructure,” Esber said.

Despite the state government being responsible for development, councils have taken on more responsibility for other issues in their areas.

“You’ve got to ask yourself: are you getting the best results [and] the best outcomes? I don’t think we are, and I think we need a complete restructure,” he said. “Local government needs to be looked at [in] its root and branch detail.”

Most councillors in Sydney are employed on a part-time basis. Parramatta councillors are paid a maximum of $36,590.

“You can’t do this job any more with councillors just turning up on a Monday night,” Esber said, as local authorities take on more responsibilities within communities. “It’s got to be done professionally.”

Sam Ngai, the mayor of Ku-ring-gai Council – which campaigned against the planning changes – disagreed with Esber that councils’ powers should be removed.

“You need to plan first, and you need to support it with funding. The current approach invites developers to just go nuts and build everywhere,” he said.

He also disagreed that councillors needed to be employed full-time, but did support pay rises.

“If you look at any council, think about how many billions of dollars in assets are being managed. If this was a private company or a publicly listed organisation of this size, you’d be paying the governing body a lot more, and you’d have a much more experienced governing body.”

Tally Room electoral analyst Ben Raue said reducing the number of councillors fed into the idea that councils should be “functioning more like a corporate board”.

“Democratic systems don’t work as well when there isn’t an opposition, drawing attention to bad decisions and forcing those in power to do their jobs more competently,” he said. “That criticism and opposition is more likely to exist on a [larger council].”

Premier Chris Minns has previously accused councils of using heritage concerns to “stop all development”.

“They don’t have the gumption to come out and say, ‘Well, we don’t want anyone else moving into our community, and we certainly don’t want any uplift in development,’” Minns said in December.

“This doesn’t have to be adversarial,” Minns said in February at a gathering of mayors supportive of his plans.

At its council meeting on Monday night, Parramatta councillors were set to debate a motion calling for the state government to keep its election promise to end no-grounds eviction, put forward by a councillor who had just been evicted from her own home.

But 10 of the 14 councillors walked out of the chamber, saying they had a conflict of interest in the matter as they were landlords. The meeting lost quorum, and the motion was never debated.

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