An overview of planning and environmental justice in Queensland

Jason Byrne jason.byrne@griffith.edu.au

Aysin Dedekorkut Howesa.dedekorkut@griffith.edu.au

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Overview

• What is planning?• Role of planning in environmental (in)justice• What are the key issues?• Who is affected?• Two examples

– Parks– Oil vulnerability

• What might be done?

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Park sign on Pacific Coast Highway, L.A.

Land use planning defined• Future-oriented activity for creating and managing

places• Guiding private land and property development• Directed towards state goals and objectives• Partly reflecting community aspirations• Ordering the use of land for ‘efficiency’• Preventing land-use conflict• Minimising environmental impacts• Enhancing quality of life and amenity• Preventing avoidable deaths (e.g. sanitation)• Pursuing social welfare & equity

Three scales• Local land use planning (Council

schemes)• Regional Planning (e.g. SEQ Region

Plan)• State-wide strategic projects

Two types• Statutory planning• Strategic planning

Land use

Zoning Scheme

Development control

Strategy

Plan

Vision

Policy

Standards

Code

Guideline

Regulation

So, what can planning do?• Guides future development and resource use• Anticipates development impacts and seeks to

manage them• Seeks to prevent or minimise negative impacts• Notionally aims to achieve sustainability• Rationalises development patterns• Ensures minimum standards are met

– e.g. drainage, building heights, road access, sewer connection, access to sunlight, overshadowing etc.

Environmental justice in Queensland

• Planning has not responded well to environmental justice imperatives (risk management framework)

• Other people’s business• Need to understanding who is vulnerable & to what

– Who are they?– Where do they live?– What factors make them vulnerable?

• Mapping vulnerable locations• Devising potential solutions• Modifying practices• Working with vulnerable people to devise responses

Vulnerability indicators

Physical

• Proximity to coastline• Height above sea level• Topography• Density of built form• Patterns of industrialisation• Location within floodplain• Proximity to dense vegetation• Age of building• Proximity to freeways• Proximity to airports• Access to green space• Distance to supermarkets

Social (after Cutter: 2006, 122-3)

• Female• Female head of household• Single parent• Large number of dependents• Unemployed• Low education• Homeless• Low income• Seasonal worker / service sector employee• Migrant• ‘Non-English speaker’• Very old & very young• Renter (insecure tenure)• Non-White• Caravan or mobile home dweller• Primary industry occupation• Proximity to transport and medical services• Disability• Welfare dependent• Asthmatic

What were the historical issues?• Inner city contamination from

heavy industry• Discrimination against Aboriginal

people & spatial segregation• Lead petrol & lead paint• Dumping• Gasworks and petrochemical

industries• Landfill sites & treatment plants• Light industrial areas

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What are the current key issues?• Climate change impacts (e.g. heatwaves,

flood, drought)

• Food, water & energy security• Urban redevelopment / densification• Access to green space• Land contamination & asbestos exposure• Wild rivers• Mining (e.g. coal seam gas and uranium)

• New port development• Remote Aboriginal communities• Public participation & cutting green tape

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Causes/drivers• Intentional targeting (less likely – no evidence)• Land markets (seems to happen)• Unequal law enforcement (likely)• Biased decision-making (probably)• Limited public participation (definitely)

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Roadblocks/impediments• Planning is reactive and not retrospective• Failure to recognise race/ethnicity/inequality• Legislative change is limiting powers further• Lack of consultation• Ministerial call-in powers circumventing process• Funding withdrawal from agencies• Expedited approvals: ‘open for business’• Lack of recognition of EJ issues• Difficulty in accessing information• The dominance of hazards/risk rhetoric

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Some big challenges for QLD planning

• Coal seam gas• Contaminated sites• Climate change• Food & water security• Remote Aboriginal communities

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Data problems• Availability of data• Cost of data acquisition and processing• Incomplete datasets• Poor record keeping• Scale of analysis (body, household, neighbourhood,

region, state)

• Silo approach to knowledge• Lack of agreed uniform measures• Issue with data custodians (e.g. Federal vs. state)

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Findings on park distribution• National standard of 3 ha (7 acres) per 1,000 residents• Queensland has a generally accepted standard of 4 – 5 ha per

1,000 residents• Gold Coast has a desired standard of service for between 3.7 and

5.1 ha per 1,000 residents• We found Gold Coast has:

– 2.3 ha / 1,000 for local parks– 0.81 ha / 1,000 for city parks– 0.5 ha / 1,000 for district parks– 0.84 ha / 1,000 for foreshore parks– 4.53 ha / 1,000 for all park types

• Unequal distribution and poor accessibility by public transportation• Now DSS and contribution have been slashed

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Evaluation of methods:Network vs. buffer

• Cover different areas• Buffer exaggerates travel

difference• Network accounts for

street connectivity• Network more accurately

depicts catchments• Both may miss informal

paths / trails• Ground-truthing required

500m

800m

2500m

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Dependent Variable Local Parks City Parks District ParksForeshore Reserves All Parks

All Parks-Foreshore

Total CDs in Gold Coast City Council 859 859 859 859 866 866

CDs with a Park 626 14 18 208 866 658

percent of CDs with a Park 72.9% 1.6% 2.1% 24.2% 100.0% 76.0%

Total Area 10,973,853 2,627,667 5,626,773 3,799,462 23,027,755 19,228,293

Average Park Size 17,530 145,981 27,052 271,390 26,591 29,222

Park area/capita (sq m) 23.3 8.1 5.6 8.4 45.3 36.9

ANOVA (SEIFA Independent Variable)

Adjusted R Square 0.008 0.001 -0.00067 -0.00114 0.0072 0.0086

t Stat 2.82 1.36 0.65 -0.1627 2.684 2.909

P-value 0.0049 0.172 0.5158 0.87 0.0074 0.0037

Parks with bus-stops 266 8 11 96 580 484

percent of parks with bus-stops 42.5% 57.1% 61.1% 46.2% 67.0% 73.6%

total number of bus-stops 816 35 44 305 1582 1277

average number of bus-stops / park 3.1 4.4 4 3.2 2.7 2.6

What might be done?

• Changing planning schemes, ordinances and regulations (but not retrospective)

• Upgrading building codes (Commonwealth issue)

• Monitoring (other government departments)

• New Laws (difficult in current political climate)

• Citizen action (That’s what changed things in the USA)– Example of Chinese makers

• Better integration & more power

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Questions?