Transcript A polarising future? Climate (in)justice and Australian urban spatial

An overview of planning and environmental
justice in Queensland
Jason Byrne
[email protected]
Aysin Dedekorkut Howes
[email protected]
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Overview
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What is planning?
Role of planning in environmental (in)justice
What are the key issues?
Who is affected?
Two examples
– Parks
– Oil vulnerability
• What might be done?
Park sign on Pacific Coast Highway, L.A.
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Land use planning defined
• Future-oriented activity for creating and
managing places
• Guiding private land and property development
• Directed towards state goals and objectives
• Partly reflecting community aspirations
• Ordering the use of land for ‘efficiency’
• Preventing land-use conflict
• Minimising environmental impacts
• Enhancing quality of life and amenity
• Preventing avoidable deaths (e.g. sanitation)
• Pursuing social welfare & equity
Three scales
• Local land use planning (Council schemes)
• Regional Planning (e.g. SEQ Region Plan)
• State-wide strategic projects
Two types
• Statutory planning
• Strategic planning
Land use
Regulation
Standards
Zoning
Scheme
Strategy
Policy
Guideline
Plan
Vision
Code
Development control
So, what can planning do?
• Guides future development and resource use
• Anticipates development impacts and seeks to
manage them
• Seeks to prevent or minimise negative impacts
• Notionally aims to achieve sustainability
• Rationalises development patterns
• Ensures minimum standards are met
– e.g. drainage, building heights, road access, sewer
connection, access to sunlight, overshadowing etc.
Environmental justice in Queensland
• Planning has not responded well to environmental
justice imperatives (risk management framework)
• Other people’s business
• Need to understanding who is vulnerable & to what
– Who are they?
– Where do they live?
– What factors make them vulnerable?
• Mapping vulnerable locations
• Devising potential solutions
• Modifying practices
• Working with vulnerable people to devise responses
Vulnerability indicators
Physical
Social (after Cutter: 2006, 122-3)
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Proximity to coastline
Height above sea level
Topography
Density of built form
Patterns of industrialisation
Location within floodplain
Proximity to dense vegetation
Age of building
Proximity to freeways
Proximity to airports
Access to green space
Distance to supermarkets
Female
Female head of household
Single parent
Large number of dependents
Unemployed
Low education
Homeless
Low income
Seasonal worker / service sector employee
Migrant
‘Non-English speaker’
Very old & very young
Renter (insecure tenure)
Non-White
Caravan or mobile home dweller
Primary industry occupation
Proximity to transport and medical services
Disability
Welfare dependent
Asthmatic
What were the historical issues?
• Inner city contamination from
heavy industry
• Discrimination against Aboriginal
people & spatial segregation
• Lead petrol & lead paint
• Dumping
• Gasworks and petrochemical
industries
• Landfill sites & treatment plants
• Light industrial areas
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What are the current key issues?
• Climate change impacts (e.g. heatwaves,
flood, drought)
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Food, water & energy security
Urban redevelopment / densification
Access to green space
Land contamination & asbestos exposure
Wild rivers
Mining (e.g. coal seam gas and uranium)
New port development
Remote Aboriginal communities
Public participation & cutting green tape
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Causes/drivers
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Intentional targeting (less likely – no evidence)
Land markets (seems to happen)
Unequal law enforcement (likely)
Biased decision-making (probably)
Limited public participation (definitely)
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Roadblocks/impediments
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Planning is reactive and not retrospective
Failure to recognise race/ethnicity/inequality
Legislative change is limiting powers further
Lack of consultation
Ministerial call-in powers circumventing process
Funding withdrawal from agencies
Expedited approvals: ‘open for business’
Lack of recognition of EJ issues
Difficulty in accessing information
The dominance of hazards/risk rhetoric
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Some big challenges for QLD planning
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Coal seam gas
Contaminated sites
Climate change
Food & water security
Remote Aboriginal communities
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Data problems
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Availability of data
Cost of data acquisition and processing
Incomplete datasets
Poor record keeping
Scale of analysis (body, household, neighbourhood,
region, state)
• Silo approach to knowledge
• Lack of agreed uniform measures
• Issue with data custodians (e.g. Federal vs. state)
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Findings on park distribution
• National standard of 3 ha (7 acres) per 1,000 residents
• Queensland has a generally accepted standard of 4 – 5
ha per 1,000 residents
• Gold Coast has a desired standard of service for
between 3.7 and 5.1 ha per 1,000 residents
• We found Gold Coast has:
– 2.3 ha / 1,000 for local parks
– 0.81 ha / 1,000 for city parks
– 0.5 ha / 1,000 for district parks
– 0.84 ha / 1,000 for foreshore parks
– 4.53 ha / 1,000 for all park types
• Unequal distribution and poor accessibility by public
transportation
• Now DSS and contribution have been slashed
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Evaluation of methods:
Network vs. buffer
• Cover different areas
• Buffer exaggerates travel
difference
• Network accounts for street
connectivity
• Network more accurately
depicts catchments
• Both may miss informal
paths / trails
• Ground-truthing required
500m
800m
2500m
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Local Parks
City Parks
District Parks
Foreshore
Reserves
All Parks
All ParksForeshore
Total CDs in Gold Coast City Council
859
859
859
859
866
866
CDs with a Park
626
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18
208
866
658
72.9%
1.6%
2.1%
24.2%
100.0%
76.0%
10,973,853
2,627,667
5,626,773
3,799,462
23,027,755
19,228,293
17,530
145,981
27,052
271,390
26,591
29,222
23.3
8.1
5.6
8.4
45.3
36.9
0.008
0.001
-0.00067
-0.00114
0.0072
0.0086
2.82
1.36
0.65
-0.1627
2.684
2.909
0.0049
0.172
0.5158
0.87
0.0074
0.0037
266
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96
580
484
42.5%
57.1%
61.1%
46.2%
67.0%
73.6%
total number of bus-stops
816
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305
1582
1277
average number of bus-stops / park
3.1
4.4
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3.2
2.7
2.6
Dependent Variable
percent of CDs with a Park
Total Area
Average Park Size
Park area/capita (sq m)
ANOVA (SEIFA Independent Variable)
Adjusted R Square
t Stat
P-value
Parks with bus-stops
percent of parks with bus-stops
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What might be done?
• Changing planning schemes, ordinances and
regulations (but not retrospective)
• Upgrading building codes (Commonwealth issue)
• Monitoring (other government departments)
• New Laws (difficult in current political climate)
• Citizen action (That’s what changed things in the USA)
– Example of Chinese makers
• Better integration & more power
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Questions?