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The Greens have been working to protect our heritage and our communities from overdevelopment.
The NSW Labor Party has recieved over $9.9 million in donations from developers in the past five years. The NSW Liberals have received about $5 million. The Greens refuse corporate donations on principle and are working for a ban on corporate donations.
Developers have been rewarded for their donations to the NSW Labor Party by pro-developer planning laws.
Part 3A
Part 3A of the planning law allows the Minister for Planning to strip local councils of their power to determine large development applications. Instead of locally elected councillors making the decision, the Minister or an unelected panel appointed by the Minister makes the decision. Under Part 3A 99.6% of applications are approved! Many developers have donated to the NSW Labor Party and it is seen by many as a way developers can bypass local councils and community scrutiny.
In Marrickville, two development proposals have been ‘called in’ under Part 3A.
1) A huge overdevelopment in Lewisham that includes 14 storey residential towers and a large supermaket mall.
2) An IKEA bulky goods store on the Princes Highway at Tempe.
The Greens believe that the locally elected council should make such development decisions. The local council process is much more responsive to local community concerns and allows greater community participation. The Part 3A process is murky, distant and effectively locks the community out of the decision making process.
The Greens on Marrickville Council have moved a motion on the Part 3A development at Lewisham.
Complying developments
The NSW Labor Party recently brought in some terrible new planning laws which further restrict Council powers and abolish community input into many developments.
In an extraordinarily bad example of governance, the state government rammed the ‘complying and excempt’ developments laws through the parliament before most of the detail was written. How our members of parliament feel they can responsibly vote for laws where the crucial detail is yet to be drafted is an interesting question. But the Labor Party MPs voted for the laws and stiched up a deal with Fred Nile and the Shooters Party to squeeze it through the NSW Upper House. (The Shooters Party got a relaxation of gun laws in return for their votes!)
Complying and excempt developments law means that developments that meet a simple set of criteria do not have to go to council for consent. Instead, a developer can hire their own private certifier to tick off and approve the development (that’s right, someone who you are paying will sign off on your own development! A clear conflict of interest? A recipe for disaster?).
Not only do complying developments bypass council scrutiny, but neighbours do not have to be informed until 48 hours before construction (or demolition) starts. Even then they will only be informed that the development has already been approved!
The Greens voted against this shonky law in the state parliament.
We have also been working on Marrickville Council to protect the community and our heritage from these laws. Councillor Peter Oliver moved a motion that would have protected all houses built before 1939 from these laws. Unfortunately, the Labor and Independent Councillors voted this excellent motion down. Perhaps they’re more concerned with protecting the state Labor government than protecting the local community and heritage?
