Industry Grills Stokes on Climate Resilience Planning

Just weeks after flooding swept through New South Wales, the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts has moved to repeal planning principles aimed at embedding sustainability and climate resilience in design. 

The controversial Design and Place SEPP could also be significantly changed and industry advocates are concerned it will become a toothless tiger.

It comes off the back of research commissioned by The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, which showed Australians were making decisions around where they would live based on the threat of natural disasters.

Almost three-quarters of respondents rated bushfire and extreme heat as the biggest threat, while 66 per cent said flooding had weighed into decision-making. 

Green Building Council of Australia chief executive Davina Rooney called for advocacy and support for the Design and Place SEPP, which is currently being reviewed, to support sustainability and resilience in design. 

Speaking at the GBCA’s Transform conference this week former Planning Minister Rob Stokes, who mooted the Design and Place SEPP and a suite of planning principles, said the climate would not wait for a “convenient time in the economy” to make climate resilience changes.

“For those with a longer term perspective it will provide opportunities … it’s going to get harder but it will be worth it,” Stokes said.

▲ Debris lines the streets of Lismore's CBD after this year's floods, the worst on record.

“Climate change is not going to figure out when it’s a nice time for us to make policy announcements. 

“We do have an urgency and if the science of climate change is correct then we have a responsibility to act as quickly as we humanly can recognising there will be some discomfort to industry players.”

Stokes said it was crucial that the development industry was “in front of the change”.

“The issues are going to keep being there and we’ve got the opportunity to lead the pack. Of course we can go back to being a laggard if we want to be.”

Planning Minister Roberts said the Premier had tasked him with delivering more homes and said simplifying the planning process and scrapping Stokes’ planning principles would unlock development and help to tackle housing affordability. 

“I’ve also heard from our stakeholders that the necessary pace of reform due to our swift response to the pandemic has taken a toll,” Roberts said.

“I want to work with our stakeholders on ways to boost the supply and affordability so as we do that I have discontinued the Minister’s Planning Principles.”