No abstract

With increasing urbanization of the world's populations, there is increasing concern about land consumption, particularly, urban expansion onto non-urban land. This paper identifies current approaches leading to this point and argues that these create a tangle requiring a more mature approach if land use is to be managed more effectively, especially at the peri-urban fringe. The effects of managing peri-urban land under current paradigms are demonstrated in case studies of Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. The conclusion uses international examples to suggest that fresh planning approaches that take an integrated view of land-use management in a new paradigm are needed.

The New South Wales Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979, came into effect on 1 September 1980. It was Australia's first planning legislation where the objects of the Act explicitly included a balance between economic, social and environmental outcomes. The Act also facilitated public participation at all stages of plan-making and land-use decisionmaking. While the Act continues to promote such aims, it has also undergone significant amendment, particularly in the last 5 years. This has seen a distinct move away from the spirit of the original objects of the Act to more centralized and less participatory decisionmaking. This paper examines the evolution of the Act and of the New South Wales planning system. The NSW Planning Department considers that the state's planning system is still world standard. This review concludes otherwise. Rather, the evidence strongly indicates that a review of the planning system and legislative framework is warranted in order to achieve better land management.

The limited research on e-Planning in Australia, a perceived slow take up of e-Planning in the New South Wales (NSW) planning system, and the release of a set of e-Planning recommendations as part of a larger planning reform package in November 2007 are the three main reasons for conducting this research. The goal of this paper is to discover the attitudes of planners in the NSW planning system toward Information Technology, and secondly, what the planners understanding of the e-Planning recommendations are. An online survey of 171 planning staff working in NSW local government was conducted during August and September 2008. The survey results confirmed that planners in the NSW planning system are using a wide variety of IT applications, and that although there are frustrations, their attitude is supportive of using IT in their workplace. Participants also demonstrated a strong understanding of the e-Planning recommendations with insightful additional comments collected about the advantages of e-Planning tools and the wider implications for the planning system. Overall, this research has investigated the attitude of planners and found them to be supportive and understanding of the new technologies that are largely yet to be implemented in their workplaces.

The limited research on e-Planning in Australia, a perceived slow take up of e-Planning in the New South Wales (NSW), planning system and the release of a set of e-Planning recommendations as part of planning reform packages in 2007 and 2012 are the main reasons for conducting this research. The aim of this chapter is to determine the current attitude of planners towards e-Planning. To achieve this, the authors undertook to discover the attitudes of planners towards e-Planning. An online survey of planning staff was conducted in 2008. The survey results confirmed that planners in the NSW planning system are using a wide variety of IT applications. Participants demonstrated a strong understanding of e-Planning tools and the wider implications for the planning system. Overall, this research found the attitude of planners to be supportive of new technologies and of the use of e-Planning.