Regional plan largely meaningless

Norman Harris's perception that planning "flexibility" is a significant cause of problems ("Flexibility in planning", 22/8/16) isn't much borne out by the facts.

Actually, our planning instruments are quite rigid, and the problem lies with the fact that they aren't very good.

This means mostly that potentially desirable developments are blocked by some petty detail, while bad developments can be shoe-horned into the regulatory envelope and don't require flexibility.

His concern about the "flexibility" element of the Draft Regional Plan is totally misplaced, because the Plan is largely meaningless.

A case of the mountain bringing forth a mouse, and will have negligible impact on real decision-making.

Email, Aug 22, 2016

Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy