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Objective

Recommendation

Key issues

What has been achieved 1998-2003

Tasmania Together

Related Issue Reports

Objective

To ensure that settlement patterns and processes and infrastructure development in Tasmania are sustainable, to improve equity and affordability in access to services and amenities, and to manage the environmental consequences of urban growth.

Recommendation

It is recommended that:

• the State Government and regional organisations of councils prepare regional settlement strategies that integrate land use, transport, and natural resource management;
   
• population change, land supply and demand be monitored on State, regional and local levels and be used to prepare settlement strategies;
   
• key regional centres be identified for the development of amenities and services, higher-density mixed-use developments around existing and potential transport nodes;
   
• in releasing new land for subdivisions, planning authorities consider equity of access to services and amenities by residents, and the protection of environmental and resource values;
   
• demographic analysis and consultation with communities is undertaken to determine recreation and social infrastructure requirements in the planning and re-planning of residential areas;
   
• potential adverse health and safety effects are considered in the use and development of land when preparing and reviewing planning schemes and making planning decisions;
   
• assessment of sites contaminated, or potentially contaminated, by hazardous wastes comply with the guidelines set out in the National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination) Measure 1999 (see also Waste Management and Contaminated Sites); and
   
• consistent and transparent systems of headworks charges for subdivisions are implemented, which better reflect the cost to the community of development, and which promote staged and infill development in proximity to existing services wherever practicable.
   

Key issues

The previous SoE Report referred to dispersed settlement patterns having environmental impacts on water quality, biodiversity and landscape values, and endorsed a consistent approach to residential development across the State via the State Planning Policy Framework (SPPF) and the Premier's Direction Statement.

In 2003, the need remains for settlement strategies to coordinate development and infrastructure across council boundaries. This is particularly important where there are regional impacts (such as on biodiversity and regional landscape values) or implications for service providers, particularly transport, education and social services. Settlement strategies will require overall State direction on matters such as these. The Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 provides that a planning scheme must, as far as practicable, be consistent with- and coordinated with-the planning schemes applying to adjacent areas, and must have regard for the use and development of the region as an entity in environmental, economic and social terms.

Links to related Issue Reports are provided below.

• Population and Settlement Patterns: The majority of the fastest growing localities are located outside the major urban centres. The largest population centres (more than 20,000 people) declined marginally from 459,659 to 456,652 between 1996 and 2001.
   
• Land Tenure, Land Use and Land Cover: Many environmental issues affecting both aquatic and terrestrial environments in Tasmania are consequences of human-induced changes to land cover.
   
• Urban Growth: With Hobart, Launceston, and other centres containing a number of threatened species and priority vegetation communities identified by the Regional Forest Agreement, efficient land use is also a biodiversity priority. In order to minimise the clearance of remnant native vegetation in and around Tasmania's urban centres and coastlines, planning for housing development will need to maximise the use of existing housing stock and previously cleared land.
   
• Environmental Health: Environmental health is concerned with maintaining environments that promote healthy communities, and involves the protection of those aspects of human health determined or influenced by physical, chemical, biological and social factors in the environment (EnHealth 1999). There is a need for social infrastructure and local community plans to achieve a healthy social and natural environment in accordance with Local Agenda 21. Planning schemes can assist in minimising the adverse effect of environmental hazards and ensuring adequate and effective provision of public open space. Environmental health is jeopardised by various hazards. Such hazards may be associated with poverty and insufficient development, as well as by development that occurs without sufficient health and environmental safeguards or is based on the unsustainable consumption of natural resources.
   
• Scenic Landscape Condition: Changes in landscape values are measurable. Deterioration in the landscape values of Hobart's hill slopes through residential development has continued since the previous SoE Report in 1997. Landscape values near other settlements are also being affected through residential development.
   
• Transport: Inefficient and dispersed land use patterns make Tasmania more reliant on non-renewable fossil fuels, more susceptible to the consequences of increases in fuel prices, and increases the State's greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.
   

What has been achieved 1998-2003

The following are some examples of progress that has occurred in the period since the last SoE Report.

• The Urban Skylines and Hillfaces Committee (comprising community, and state and local government representatives) developed a method for identifying the visual impact of development on skylines and hillfaces, and provided recommendations for improving the management of visually sensitive areas (Urban Skylines and Hillfaces Committee 2000).
   
• A discussion paper about Strategic Planning and Planning Schemes (State Government and LGAT 2002) identified the need for information, policies and strategies to be better integrated and coordinated at regional and State levels by improving processes to engage stakeholders.
   
• Phase 2 of the Simplifying Planning Schemes project will investigate gaps in information and the means to facilitate and coordinate strategic planning at State, regional and local levels. A service provision schedule is being considered as part of a standard framework for schedules, and could facilitate the integration of State, regional and Council infrastructure planning. Population growth and land supply and demand data is required for NRM, Tasmania Together and strategic planning across councilsl, agencies and the business community.
   
• A residential schedule to implement relevant parts of Tascord is being considered in Phase 2 of the Simplifying Planning Schemes project. This will control the form and siting of new residential development, but not its location in a regional context.
   
• The State Policy on Protection of Agricultural Land was introduced to constrain the subdivision of agricultural land.
   
• While the completion of an aerial photographic coverage of Greater Hobart by DPIWE, as part of the LIST, will have a variety of applications, it will also improve capacity to understand the 'footprint' of Greater Hobart and track future changes in urban extent.
   
• The Healthy Communities Survey was conducted in 1998 by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS 1998).
   

Tasmania Together

Relevant Tasmania Together goals and standards for 'Settlements' are listed in the linked file. The Tasmania Together Progress Board reported on progress toward targets for benchmarks set (Tasmania Together Progress Board 2003). Indicators, targets and baseline data are available in the latest Progress Report June 2003. Further information, including progress report updates, is available from Tasmania Together.

Related Issue Reports