Directions Paper - Western Australian Planning Commission

Directions Paper on the Integration of NRM and Land Use Planningthrough the preparation and amendment ofRegional Planning Schemes including the:• Requirement to refer newly preparedschemes or amendments to the EPA forconsideration for formal assessment• Reservation of lands for public purposesoften provides opportunities to acquireland containing regionally significantbushland or wetlands, although funds todo this in the Peel and Bunbury regionsare limited relative to the Perth region.• Special control areas to identify andprotect surface and groundwatercatchments• Environmental conditions for the regionscheme determined by Minister for theEnvironment may be incorporated intothe region scheme in a schedule ofenvironmental conditions.It is important to note that when land is zonedurban through a region scheme the opportunityto achieve NRM outcomes such as protectionof environmental assets (e.g. bushland andwetlands) is highly constrained and oftendependent on the level of assessment andadvice provided by the EPA. Land zoned urbandeferred, which is land identified for future urbanuses following the extension of urban services,the progressive development of adjacent urbanareas, and resolution of any environmental andplanning requirements relating to development,is often also highly constrained in terms of theNRM outcomes that can be achieved.The use of urban deferred zoning incircumstances where environmental issues stillneed to be resolved is considered inappropriateas it creates the expectation that the land willeventually be fully developed for urban uses.To guard against unrealistic developmentexpectations it is considered more appropriatethat for land where environmental issues havenot been resolved, the land should remain ruralzoned, rather than be zoned urban deferred.From an NRM perspective it is preferred thaturban deferment only be used to facilitate landassembly and stage future urban developmentonce environmental issues have been resolved.5.2.3 Current level of guidanceOwing to varying levels of planning capacity andexpertise, differing State agency administrativeboundaries and the diversity of environmental,social, cultural, economic issues and sizedifferences associated with regional andsub-regional areas in WA, standard modelsof regional planning strategies have beenconsidered irrelevant or ineffective (WAPC,1995). Generally development of regional andsub-regional planning strategies is guidedby the broad principles of the State PlanningStrategy.At the regional forums facilitated byEnviroPlanning throughout the State, localgovernment planners expressed concernsabout the inability of some regional planningstrategies to provide adequate guidance anddirection to local governments on planningto address issues such as managing urbangrowth, facilitating appropriate rural residentialdevelopment, identifying priority agriculturalland and significant environmental assets. Itwas acknowledged that a lack of region specificguidance through State Planning Policiescontributed to the ineffectiveness of regionalplanning strategies. A copy of the regionalforums summary report has been includedwithin Appendix 2.5.2.4 Agency rolesCollection of asset based NRM information (e.g.native vegetation, water, priority agriculturalland etc) by State NRM agencies at a regionalscale is vital for ensuring that both regional andlocal planning processes adequately considerNRM matters. This requires an integrated andcoordinated approach to NRM by the StateNRM agencies to ensure that this informationis available. This can be difficult to achievedue to the differing resource managementmissions and objectives of each of the agencies,along with the different regional administrativeboundaries that each agency operates under. Itis therefore important from a land use planningperspective that DPI effectively communicatesto the key NRM agencies where there in an38