Transparency hot-button issue in planning portfolio debate
The controversial decision to abolish the planning and development portfolio following the last election has become a key issue in the current campaign.
Bundaberg
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A proposal to reinstate a planning and development portfolio for Bundaberg council has sparked a debate that again raises questions of transparency that have long beset the current council.
Mayoral candidate Helen Blackburn made the proposal early in her campaign, issuing a statement on January 21 that if elected she would reinstate a portfolio holder or committee of councillors to oversee planning and development.
Ms Blackburn said the move would “ensure greater accountability and transparency surrounding council decision making”.
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“The current team of councillors has had no oversight of the planning and development department,” Ms Blackburn said.
“While council staff do excellent work, it is not their job to set the tone of the direction and future development of our region.
“That is what we have elected councillors for.”
Incumbent mayor Jack Dempsey struck back a week later, saying that council voted with majority consensus to remove the planning committee and portfolio councillor immediately following the 2020 election.
Mr Dempsey said the change contributed to significant increases in residential and commercial development approvals through simplifying the development application process and “get(ting) personalities away from decision-making processes”.
Councillors could request to be briefed on development applications and, if they wished, bring them to council meetings for the consideration and approval of the full council, Mr Dempsey said.
“(Ms Blackburn’s) proposal to establish a planning committee would slow down decision-making, delay construction and worsen the housing crisis,” he said.
The last councillor to hold the planning and development portfolio was long-term division 7 councillor Ross Sommerfeld, who retired ahead of the 2020 election.
When announcing his retirement, Mr Sommerfeld said his role as holder of the planning and development portfolio was important in ensuring new developments would benefit the community.
“The role I was in with planning and development needed me to be here because if someone came to town and wanted to invest in this town, it was very important we got hold of them and spoke to them and tried to work out solutions and projects and get them something that will value-add to this city,” Mr Sommerfeld said in 2020.
As Mr Dempsey said in his campaign statement, the portfolios minus planning and development were approved by the majority of council in an April 2020 council meeting, with only Tracy McPhee opposing.
However, some councillors expressed their discomfort with the abolition of the portfolio, with May Mitchell speaking at length about ratepayers’ expectations that “one of council’s most important roles” in providing a spokesperson for the public on planning and development matters would continue with the newly elected council.
Efforts by Tracy McPhee to also express her concerns were shut down during the meeting when CEO Steve Johnston advised that debate could only be heard on the motion at hand, namely the approval of the listed portfolios.
Speaking on Monday, division 5 councillor Greg Barnes said his motion in the April 2020 meeting to have the portfolio reinstated did not proceed because other councillors were told council needed to keep planning and development decisions at arms’ length following the Crime and Corruption Commission’s report on corrupt conduct in Gold Coast council.
Mr Barnes said the abolition of the portfolio empowered the CEO and council bureaucracy in relation to planning and development decisions, which contributed directly to the community concerns with transparency around planning decisions that have dogged the current council.
“Everywhere I go, people are calling for more and more transparency, they really have had enough of it,” Mr Barnes said.
“People are saying to my face, what do we need you people for when the place is run by the mayor and the CEO?
“I can’t respond to that because everything has been delegated all over the place; councillors don’t have anywhere near the input we used to have in the Burnett Shire days.”
Mr Barnes dismissed Mr Dempsey’s point that councillors can request to be briefed on any development application as a “wishy washy arrangement”.
“Councillors need to have a responsibility to go to committee meetings … and challenge the (council) officers and ask deeper, meaningful questions, and then make a recommendation to the full council,” Mr Barnes said.
He also rejected Mr Dempsey’s claims that developers were benefiting from a more streamlined decision-making process without the encumbrance of a planning and development portfolio and committee.
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“I’ve spoken to a couple of developers who are tearing their hair out because of the length of time it’s to get approvals,” Mr Barnes said.
“All this business about cutting red tape … is a bit of a smokescreen, it’s not what I’ve experienced at all.”
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