Michael Wilder's "10 Simple Ways to Solve our Development Problems" ("Plan for a liveable environment", PN 539) looks good on paper but, in fact, it's fiendishly difficult.

If it were straightforward, we'd have livable neighbourhoods throughout the country.

It is facile to say that there should be no high-rise development in Ettalong.

It is no longer possible to dig a moat around your castle and pull up the drawbridge.

Newcomers have just as much right to live on the Peninsula as people who have lived here for decades, and they have to be accommodated.

Many of them would, obviously, prefer to live in a high-rise building, as compared to the squat, ugly buildings that prevail at the moment, and why should they be prevented from doing so, just because some people who live here now don't like them.

It is arguable that young newcomers who are going to be here longer than old established residents should have the biggest say in what the place should look like, since they'll be enjoying it longer.

The idea that no more land should be cleared for development in Central Coast is patently ludicrous.

The corollary of this is that it would never be possible to build another single-family house in the city, because the only way to accommodate growing population would be by densifying existing areas, something that many Peninsula residents seem to be irrationally against.

You can't have it both ways: either built-up areas have to expand, or existing areas have to be redeveloped for higher densities.

You can't build a big, beautiful wall at the border to stop the inflow of people.

Of course, nobody would oppose there being improved public transport, except that the operation of public transport requires enough passengers to make the service viable.

More responsive public transport requires, mutatis mutandis, a denser population pattern to provide the required patronage.

Again, you can't have it both ways: you have to put up with the network as it stands or you have to accept a population increase to fund improvements.

It's no use burying your head in the sand and hoping that it won't be so.

There is no question that we'd all like to see the entire range of housing accommodation provided on the Peninsula (including high-rise), but wishing won't bring it about.

There would have to be mechanisms for achieving this goal, and nobody has yet put forward a proposal that comes anywhere near meeting the need.

Most ideas are totally impractical or so picayune that they'd have no impact.

Instead, what we get are motherhood statements about what should be, while the supply of housing is going in the opposite direction from the one that is required.

Does anyone think that our Council is capable of dealing with this issue?

Planning is much harder than rocket science.

If you're building a rocket, you have specific goals, specific technical capacities, specific options that are open to you, and a clear direction.

By contrast, planning is a matter of balancing multiple competing interests, many of them incompatible, and trying to satisfy as many demands as possible, while financial, political and social pressures pull in different directions.

It is little wonder that the outcome is a hodge-podge that satisfies nobody.

This is not to say that the present arrangement is the best we can do: it would require imagination and technical skill (neither demonstrated to date), but planning could be better than the mess we have now.

While I'd never discourage community interest in our planning processes, I am highly sceptical that attempts to put forward alternative development visions will result in any change under the present system.

Already our pseudo-Council rides rough-shod over multiple wishes that the community has strongly expressed, and I should be astonished if planning measures turned out to be any different.

The pathetic efforts displayed in the Regional Plan and the Regional Housing Strategy are a fair indication of what we can expect in future, unless there is a sea-change in our political representation.

SOURCE:

Email, 15 Mar 2022

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy

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