Rural Lands Study

4 studies – 20 years of procrastination

Rural Lands Studies have been the council's response to community demands for growth through subdivision.

Since the imposition of the 25 acre minimum lot size in 1964(see Zoning history >>) there have been 4, all failing to satisfy the desire of the community to see growth restored to the area through limited subdivision. They are:

• 1983 – Baulkham Hills Rural Lands Study stage 1
• 1991 – Baulkham Hills Rural Lands Study stage 2
• 1993 – Investigation of Lands with potential for Rural residential subdivision
• 2001 – Baulkham Hills Rural Lands Study stages 1, 2 & 3 (currently not fully completed)

While the first 3 studies actually recommended restoring a more reasonable 5 acre lot size minimum to specified areas, their findings were largely rejected by the council. In contrast, the latest study, which recommends maintaining a strategy of "no growth", has been accepted in full.

The result? After 20 years of procrastination, growth in the northwest urban fringe has come to a virtual standstill, while the rest of Sydney is booming.

Community deceived

At the outset of each study, the council made it clear that community aspirations would be taken seriously. There were no suggestions that legitimate and soundly-based community concerns would ultimately be ignored, or that the final outcome would follow or reject study recommendations at the whim of the council. Had this been the case, no-one would have supported or participated in the process.

However it's now clear that there was never any intention of allowing community concerns or aspirations to form any part of the final outcome, nor to follow any consistent process of evaluation of study recommendations.

For example, following the 1993 study, council officers were quick to produce a report criticising details of the study and elements of the study process, and on that basis the finding of the study were rejected. Yet there has been no such criticism of 2001 study, in spite of the fact that it is clearly biased, copied, and full of unsubstantiated opinion presented as fact. Instead, council officers prepared a report defending the defects in the study that had been pointed out in public submissions, and recommended that the findings be accepted in full, unaltered.

Throughout the entire 20 years spanned by the studies, the only consistency has been council opposition to the wish of the community.

In the end, residents and ratepayers money has either been wasted on studies that were rejected, or used against them to prepare recommendations directly opposed to their interests.

The community has been deceived. The study process has degenerated into little more than an expensive game played with ratepayers' money – a game designed to occupy the attention of the community on the myriad of "related" issues, while the real decision-making about key issues goes on somewhere else.

No longer credible

Given this history, the process of Rural Lands Studies is no longer credible.

It isn't acceptable for the council to commission studies at ratepayers' expense, then accept or reject the recommendations based upon arbitrary criteria-of-the-day.

In this, politicians and bureaucrats have failed the community, who rightfully expect and demand real participation and involvement with decision-making. Treating residents as if they are of limited intelligence and incapable of making sensible decisions about their own future belongs to the feudal past, not the year 2004 in Australia.

The record shows that the council has clearly been more concerned about pressure from the state government than the community it is supposed to represent. Mere hints, suggestions, or "lack of support" from government departments are treated with the highest regard; whereas soundly-based proposals supported by fact and reason, reflecting community aspirations, have been ignored.

Time to move forward

This game has gone on long enough. It is now time for the politicians and bureaucrats to recognise that their job is to act according to the wishes of the community, for sense and reason to prevail, and for the unreasonable restriction on minimum lot sizes to be removed so that growth returns to the study area.

They have become nothing more than the means by which bureaucrats and politicians procrastinate when faced with community pressure over barriers which no-one ever asked for in the first place. Worst of all, Baulkham Hills ratepayers – many firmly opposed to the policy – have so far seen an estimated $500,000 of their money wasted as the council defends the imposition of this unwanted policy.

The whole process is unnecessary and presumptuous.

• It's unnecessary because there is no consistent relationship between study findings and final outcomes.

• It's presumptuous because the local community is full of well-informed and well-educated adults who are more than capable of deciding what's best for themselves and the area. There's no need for the key decisions in this issue to be carried out by others who are out of touch, and simply following orders.

Now that it is clear the urban consolidation dogma is no more than that – dogma – it's time for the politicians and bureaucrats to move on, remove barriers that were erected in its name, and let the community make its own diverse decisions about what it wants for the future.

Instead of study followed by expensive study, all that is needed now is for the unwanted and unreasonable 25 acre minimum lot size to be replaced with something more reasonable, such as 5 acres.