The NSW Draft Centres Policy focuses on providing for the needs of consumers in an efficient and competitive manner. However, it lacks detail on how to plan for centres that are driven by demand from external markets – vital for economic development and regional job growth.
The policy states that it should be read in conjunction with other policies, such as those relating to residential development and employment lands. However, the State Employment Lands Plan deals with traditional industrial land and business & technology parks containing higher order jobs, while the Draft Centres Policy is supposed to cover all retail and commercial employment including ICT, finance and business services.
The policy identifies a network of centres, including local centres to cater for the population, and strategic centres, which are considered crucial to the economic, social and environmental function of the state or region. The latter covers global Sydney; regional cities such as Parramatta; and centres with a special economic function such as airports, ports, universities and hospitals.
Apart from identifying the centres’ hierarchy and ensuring land is zoned appropriately for business uses, the policy does not address important planning considerations for strategic centres, such as:
- Links between knowledge industries and traditional employment lands;
- Lack of high-order job provision in regional areas requiring long journeys to work;
- Maximising leverage from investment in infrastructure through co-location.
The policy’s focus on zoning sufficient land parcels for retail and commercial uses does not reflect the need to attract export-oriented and knowledge-intensive industries and jobs to the residential growth corridors.
Jobs in population-driven industries, such as retail and entertainment, can only do so much to achieve the sustainable development aims of the NSW State Plan, which prioritises increasing business investment in regional areas and providing jobs closer to home.
The bulk of the policy concerns the provision of retail and commercial floorspace, with demand tied to population growth and household spending; and location and scale dependent on assessment against a set of suitability criteria. In terms of population-driven ‘retail-focused’ centres, the policy has many valid points which could enable industry and government to work together to ensure that centres expand and develop in a sustainable way.
In contrast, the Western Australian Metropolitan Centres Policy (currently under review) aims to ensure an equitable distribution of centres so that consumers can access goods and services close to home. However, the use of retail floorspace caps as a method of control restricts overall supply, leads to dispersed retail rather than concentrated centres, does not enable centres the flexibility to innovate and grow in a sustainable way, and reduces healthy competition.
The Draft NSW Centres Policy highlights the importance of flexibility and competition in creating the most benefit for consumers, with people able to make choices based on factors such as price, convenience, access and quality. It advocates:
- Responding quickly to consumer demand;
- Letting the market determine the need for additional floorspace;
- Allowing the planning system to assess development applications on external costs and benefits, rather than demand (or arbitrary retail floorspace caps).
Further examination of how to measure the economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of a development is required. This is particularly important for the sustainability of a centre in terms of opportunities for working close to home, public transport accessibility and the ability to access a diversity of activity with one trip.
It is also vital that when determining the economic or net community benefit of a retail development, the importance of employment in higher-order export or knowledge industries is prioritised. This will ensure that strategic sites are maintained as valuable employment lands, crucial for long-term economic development.
It seems that you’ve put a good amount of effort into your article and I want a lot more of these on the web these days. I truly got a kick out of your post. I do not have a bunch to to say in response, I only wanted to register to say special work.
It has been a hard job to find such informative and important tags from net. I went through your post, which made me update about online marketing products. I’ve been concerned with these all, since so long and doing work for my friend to promote his payday loans site.