FENNER CONFERENCE ON THE ENVIRONMENT
Overview of planning challenges in Australia’s high-growth urban and peri-urban areas
Dr Nicole Gurran
Nicole Gurran is a senior lecturer in the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on local planning, housing, and managing urban development in highly sensitive environmental contexts. Recent projects have included studies for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the National Sea Change Taskforce, and the United Nations. She is an Executive Board Member of the International Urban Planning and Environment Association. Her report ‘Meeting the sea change challenge: Sea change communities in coastal Australia’, for the National Sea Change Task Force, was awarded the NSW Planning Institute of Australia award for research and scholarship in 2005.
I am following on from some very fascinating scientific presentations. I have an apology to make: I am not a scientist, or if I am a scientist, I am a policy scientist. But you will be glad to know that when you bring policy scientists together with physical scientists or ‘hard’ scientists, policy scientists can actually learn things, and I did pick up one or two good things this morning.
One was a new term for the sort of stuff that I deal with – but, hopefully, won’t be dealing with for too much longer – ‘red brick fungus’. I am going to pick that one up and use it shamelessly.
When I was asked to talk to this group I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a background in water.’ But the organisers said, ‘Oh, but you deal with sea change.’ I said, ‘Yes, but sea change is a metaphor.’ And then I thought about it, and yes, it is a metaphor for the huge lifestyle shift that people make, but it is also a metaphor for the impact of that lifestyle shift.
Then, when I began to look at the implications of sea change from a water perspective, I realised that if we used the lens of water and the issue of water security, for want of a better term, by which to address some of the broader challenges of sea change that I am going to raise this morning – if we used water as the lens or the catalyst for responding to those broader issues – we would actually be able to deal with some of the bigger-picture problems that I am going to talk about.
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Briefly, I am going to introduce you to the key forces and trends associated with high growth in natural amenity areas. Those are peri-urban areas and particularly coastal growth areas, because they are the places I have done the most research on.
I am going to talk about the way that this growth affects particular places. We have distinguished a basic typology to dig a little bit deeper in terms of growth drivers and possible solutions to the growth problems.
I am going to reference the key planning challenges, because I understand that it is important to consider water issues in relation to those broader challenges, and then look at some of the responses. And certainly we have talked about some of the detail of those responses already today.
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I am basing this presentation on two pieces of research that we at the Planning Research Centre did for the National Sea Change Taskforce.
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Amenity migration – in Australia we call it ‘sea change’ or ‘tree change’ growth – is an international movement. We are not the first to be affected by it. Essentially, it is the migrational movement of people to places that have very high natural amenity. And often those places are the most environmentally vulnerable as well.
Because the movement is motivated by lifestyle factors – Clive Hamilton calls it ‘downshifting’ – rather than money, people are moving to places that don’t necessarily have a sound economic base.
The movement is underpinned by very fundamental societal changes – the growing cohort of young aged, with baby boomers expected to have a long and active retirement; technological changes, especially with an ability to telecommute and to get from one place to another very quickly, so transportation changes; the post-Fordist shift from an industrial economy through to the service sector; and a leisure orientation.
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I will turn now to some of the population forces. The key push force is an increasing lack of amenity in the large metropolitan regions, and a growing unaffordability in those regions as well, particularly in the ‘housing crisis’. The pull factors are the promise of a better lifestyle, there has been a bit of research in south-east Queensland indicating that lifestyle definitely underpins migration there, as you might expect; the natural amenity values; a sense of imagined community associated with moving to a smaller place with strong community linkages; climate, for some people, although they may be in for a rude surprise; affordability, the converse to the unaffordable cities; and also a phenomenon of chain migration, so if you know someone who has left the city – it might even be your ageing parents – when you go along yourself and you need some family support there is research to demonstrate that people actually follow other people away from the city or from a regional area.
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Some of the population trends – and I am sure you have heard more detailed material than I am going to talk about right now – are broadly for cyclical increases and decreases in this movement, predominantly to high amenity coastal areas of Australia, at least since the 1960s but of course predated by the growth of holiday homes, especially around the capital cities.
Our research looked pretty much at the last 15 years or so. The strongest growth between 1991 and 1996 was predominantly in New South Wales and south-east Queensland. We saw an acceleration of growth to selected high amenity destinations around Victoria and South Australia. The current estimated resident population figures suggest that once again south-east Queensland is experiencing a resurgence of growth, as is south-western Australia.
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This is a very basic graph showing the annual growth trends in Queensland between 2001 and 2006. The city of the Gold Coast is estimated to have had the second largest population increase in Australia between 2005 and 2006.
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In Western Australia, there has been some very rapid growth, particularly between Wanneroo and Mandurah, as well as places like Augusta–Margaret River – very environmentally sensitive areas.
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So, is this all a beat-up? Essentially, amenity migration is not going to fundamentally challenge the primacy of our capital cities, although it could turn into one big urban bleed, but we hope that that doesn’t happen. But the underlying trends, in terms of people seeking a high amenity destination, an alternative to the capital cities, is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, simply because the baby boomers are about to retire and we have got those technological and fundamental economic changes that make it feasible for many people to leave the capital cities.
The latest population estimates suggest that this is starting to happen. This type of process may also extend to selected high amenity inland, or tree change, communities.
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I want to give you a quick look at our typology before I highlight some more of the planning challenges. We identify five types of places. The first type attracts the coastal commuters and is particularly afflicted by red brick fungus. These are places that surround the capital cities, within an hour’s drive of each of our state coastal capitals. Obviously, growth there is affected by metropolitan spillover pressures, but it is surrounding former fishing communities, former communities that were once retirement destinations or holiday destinations – very fragile ecologies and places that regard themselves as having their own identity.
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Coastal getaways are places within a three-hour ring of the capital city, particularly attractive to retirees, weekenders and telecommuters. The rates of growth in these places, and often with very small base populations, are quite extreme. And the social indicators are quite disturbing as well.
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Coastal cities are very diverse in their characteristics. They include places like Newcastle, and Wollongong, which are trying to refashion themselves away from an industrial economy to a lifestyle, knowledge-based economy, but they also include traditional coastal cities like Cairns and the Gold Coast.
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The lifestyle destinations were probably popularised in the early 1970s. Places like Byron Bay, Noosa, and others further afield, more than three hours from a capital city. They typify the boom/bust phenomenon that is associated with amenity migration. So you might one year have a very rapid influx, another year you might have a very rapid retreat. There are some significant planning and infrastructure challenges associated with that.
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Lastly, the coastal hamlets are places that are the most environmentally fragile – places like Augusta–Margaret River, Robe in South Australia, Douglas in far north Queensland. Their isolation and the fact that they are often surrounded by many protected areas has acted as a barrier to growth in the past, but they are increasingly attractive to amenity migrants and of course to growth associated with tourism.
Development in these contexts might not show up statistically as being great except in terms of rates of growth relative to the base population, but the environmental impacts in these relatively undisturbed locations are perhaps the most significant of all.
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What is different about amenity migration, as compared with other forms of migration? What makes this a different type of growth to have to deal with? There are some social things and some environmental things.
The first key difference, I think, is that people are moving to a place, not to a job. So, as I said before, they are moving to places that fundamentally don’t have that economic security, and unfortunately some of those places regard their only ‘growth’ or their only industry as growth itself. You’ve got a fundamental dilemma there.
Amenity migrants themselves, though some may be disadvantaged, are often likely to be more affluent than the base population, and they are likely to spark off a whole lot of affordability concerns and repercussions. They are likely to actually increase existing socioeconomic polarisation within these communities.
And, of course, they are associated with rapid boom/bust scenarios.
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Another key difference about amenity migration is that it contributes to a pattern of gradated growth, or population gradation. There may be visitors, who may in some parts be just associated with a seasonal influx (although in the Gold Coast they talk about having a year-round visitor population, many other places would be dealing with seasonal peaks and troughs); seasonal workers, who come to service the seasonal tourist booms; second home owners, who in some of these amenity communities may account for up to 50 per cent of home owners, so half the time or more than half the time you might have 50 per cent of your built-up urban community vacant; and of course permanent residents, who may once have been second home owners.
The other key attribute of amenity migration that is quite different from ‘ordinary’ metropolitan growth is that development pressure, by its nature, is focused on the most sensitive areas. Of course this is at its most extreme on the coast, where everyone wants to be on the coastline. But it is just as significant an issue in fragile alpine areas, or around a lake or a river bank.
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I have referenced some of the key socioeconomic planning challenges. They are critical, because when we talk about making infrastructure changes, when we talk about introducing new requirements on development patterns that are going to have cost implications, the socioeconomic conditions of these communities are immediately going to come up.
The volatile population profiles can’t be underestimated. There are seasonal peaks and troughs, as well as the rapid influxes and the churn factor. So the population one year might be radically different six months later. A lot of people move in, a lot of people move out. What does that mean for infrastructure? Quite simply, we don’t want to over-plan.
These communities often have very high needs – if we are talking about an aged community, there are extremely high support needs in terms of hospitals, social services, assisted transportation and so on – and often are economically disadvantaged as well.
I have mentioned this growth ‘industry’ that might form the default economic base for a community. Of course that growth industry itself undermines the asset base. Dr Darryl Low Choy spoke about that very clearly this morning in relation to south-east Queensland.
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In terms of the planning challenges in relation to infrastructure, we could have a several-day conference on this. You have all heard about the hard and soft infrastructure crisis, and we have talked about the water infrastructure crisis and I will talk about it more in a moment.
I have mentioned the seasonal demands, but one thing that I do want to mention is that infrastructure decisions shape growth as well. So if there is a decision to radically expand the capacity of an area to grow, that growth is likely to follow. So the worst case growth scenario is that red brick fungus extending across from Hervey Bay in south-east Queensland through to Surf Coast in Victoria. That type of scenario is likely to occur if we overcater to predicted growth.
At the same time, growth that is poorly planned shapes infrastructure as well. If you get incremental growth, people are going to demand servicing infrastructure, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
The environmental sensitivity of this particular group hardly needs to be emphasised. On the left of the slide you see a picture of the Salty Lake Lagoon, at Evans Head, for those of you who are familiar with the dilemmas there.
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In relation to governance, Dr Low Choy illustrated the dilemmas very well when he talked about the different types of plans and planning strategies and he said there is very little prospect of their coming together. I agree absolutely. And in relation to many of these high amenity communities, we are talking about very small, very poorly resourced units of governance. I doubt very much that, if they are lucky enough to have a land-use planner on staff, they are going to have an environmental scientist as well.
So that is a barrier, even if we were able to demonstrate in highly urban areas that we were integrating our scientific data well with our decision-making cycles. If I had time I could lecture you ad nauseam about the way in which we might be able to bring in scientific data to decision-making cycles.
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In relation to the environment, this is a picture of Wanneroo. The picture adequately captures the environmental issues, I think: biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, changed landscape plans – loss of the dunal system – and so forth. The last dot point relates to the need for rehabilitation of many degraded environments in high amenity destinations, but our planning system doesn’t provide a way to address past problems or problems that are already legitimately occurring, let alone new ones.
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The water quality issues associated with development in high amenity destinations are extreme. Despite the fact that we are aware of this, marinas continue to be developed, canal estates continue to be developed, we see major land-use conflicts and access conflicts in relation to the use of commercial fisheries or boating and conflicts between the tourism industry and industrial uses, and so on. I am going to talk a bit more about the solutions to those in a moment.
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The other key challenges are the security of water supply, and managing demand in these communities – often very high water demand communities, especially based on that typical subdivision pattern that I showed you a moment ago in Wanneroo. (This slide also shows a picture of Wanneroo, by the way. They have lost the beach there. They think that is due to the marina developments.) And then there is the challenge of the increased and unknowable, although there is a growing scientific consensus, vulnerability associated with climate change impacts to natural hazards, to storms, to floods, to drought, to bushfire effects and to potential sea level rise.
In terms of planning responses to climate change, we talk about two approaches. The first is risk minimisation, to reduce the vulnerability of these communities, and the second is to reorientate our planning strategies to minimise their contribution to climate change.
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Previous speakers have already spoken in concrete terms about the way in which ecological infrastructure can start to reorient the way we plan our communities around greater water conservation, greater security of supply and, ultimately – which I will get to in a moment – better planning for climate protection.
South-east Queensland is obviously starting to consider some of these issues in relation to its regional planning, and south-east Queensland was a first in linking its funded regional infrastructure strategy to its planned settlement strategy. This is where the opportunity arises. If we start to plan our new communities around ecological infrastructure, we can begin to achieve the type of desired high amenity settlement pattern that originally attracts people to this place, while also avoiding some of the high costs and some of the negative growth connotations associated with traditional approaches to infrastructure provision.
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At the local government level there has been, I think, a very rapid willingness to adopt new approaches to water management, particularly the area of water sensitive urban design (WSUD), which essentially brings together the sorts of things that our water utilities providers were talking about and integrates them with the way in which you design new settlements.
The other, and intimately linked, component to this is planning effectively for climate change. Obviously, the first way in which we must plan for climate change is to reduce our contribution to climate change. In new release communities in greenfields developments we are starting with a clean slate, so there is no excuse not to plan to optimise our carbon performance, to look at forms of decentralised energy – and water supply as well – to create spaces, to actively preserve spaces that might provide opportunities for renewable energy and low carbon sources of energy, to design around minimising the need for travel and maximising opportunities for sustainable travel, and of course to achieve multiple objectives at the same time. So our open space can also provide a basis for stormwater treatment, it can also provide a basis that is integral to water sensitive urban design, as well as protecting habitat and managing some of the projected risks associated with climate change.
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In relation to risk associated with climate change, a precautionary approach in terms of protecting assets, protecting infrastructure from potential sea level rise, a rapid change in the nature and intensity of storm events and so on is critical – but very difficult to achieve in valuable waterfront areas. And we have to look again to the opportunities. If there are opportunities to use foreshore protection and gain greater open space while ensuring a retreat from vulnerable foreshore areas, then we need to use climate change as a catalyst to put that forward.
The United Kingdom government has released just a month or so ago, as part of its full package of climate change responses, a very innovative approach to planning for climate change, so I would refer you to that in relation to the source for some of these approaches. They also talk about regular monitoring.
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We need to change the dominant paradigms, the way that we develop and continue to develop, and the way that we consume water and resources. We simply can’t go along as business-as-usual any longer.
Our professional knowledge and capacity, and our interdisciplinary knowledge, need to expand a great deal.
We need regulatory innovation, particularly planning innovation, and particularly innovation in relation to our planning regulations.
One of the barriers associated with introducing forms of decentralised energy provision and decentralised water sensitive urban design features is the uncertain life costs and maintenance costs associated with that infrastructure, so we need to provide a bit more certainty there.
And private property expectations almost go without saying.
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But there are opportunities. Amenity migrants want to live in clean, healthy places. That’s why they move there. In fact, research in the United States demonstrates very effectively that your new migrants can be some of your strongest lobbyists for green technology, for green infrastructure.
Councils struggling to cope with this onslaught of growth simply can’t afford to provide infrastructure in the traditional ways, but water sensitive urban design and decentralised forms of energy infrastructure can actually be funded by developers. They are also very well placed to adjust to the natural capacity and peaks and troughs in terms of settlement scale.
You are going to need a lot of technical innovation, perhaps some new economic opportunities, for these communities.
Lastly, with regard to the social dynamics of these places, such water sensitive, high carbon performance communities are also the sorts of places where people walk around, where people have space to get together and where people are also very much in tune with their natural amenity base, another key ingredient in having an active and aware community that is going to support changed behaviour and changed consumption patterns.
Discussion
Question: One area that you haven’t particularly addressed but I am quite interested in is the issue of constraints placed on growth by the availability of water. In these sea change areas, as a good example, where many greenfield sites are being developed, have you done any exploration of the relationship between the ability to provide water to these areas and the ability within the government structures, for example planning, to consider that?
Nicole Gurran: The first tool as a planner is your ability to say no to development, and these greenfield developments are needing a significant change in land use to be approved. You can link your approval for change in land use to water security. So you are starting to see in some parts of the Southern Highlands, for instance, developments being required to demonstrate complete on-site capacity to fulfil, in a self-sufficient way, their own water needs. That is the kind of model that needs to be mandated, and when you are talking about rezoning in greenfield areas there is a significant opportunity to tie planning permission to water security.
While my research is not very heavily funded in terms of numerous specific case study communities, in a sense you don’t need to do that research to say, ‘Well, we know how to stop development that is not water secure, and that is simply by refusing new development until it is able to demonstrate these principles.’ That is a controversial position – luckily, I am not a land owner.
