Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments

Research report

This research report was released on 16 May 2011. The report is only available online from this website.

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Volume 1 - Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments (PDF - 3941 Kb)
Volume 1 - Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments (Word/ZIP - 5396 Kb)
Volume 2 - Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments (PDF - 2750 Kb)
Volume 2 - Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments (Word/ZIP - 7021 Kb)

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Preliminaries (PDF - 235 Kb)
Copyright, Terms of reference, Foreword, Abbreviations and Table of Contents
Overview (PDF - 312 Kb)
Leading practices (PDF - 226 Kb)
Chapter 1 About the study (PDF - 208 Kb)
1.1 Objectives of planning, zoning and development assessment systems
1.2 Defining planning, zoning and development assessment
1.3 What has the Commission been asked to do?
1.4 Conduct of the study
1.5 Outline of the report
Chapter 2 The efficient and effective functioning of cities (PDF - 505 Kb)
2.1 The functioning of cities
2.2 Challenges to urban efficiency and effectiveness
2.3 Broad indicators of the functioning of cities
2.4 Partial indicators of city functioning
2.5 Conclusion
Chapter 3 Regulatory framework (PDF - 391 Kb)
3.1 Planning and zoning systems
3.2 Development assessment processes
3.3 Appeal processes
3.4 Recent and proposed reforms
Chapter 4 Urban land supply - policies and strategies (PDF - 372 Kb)
4.1 Economic context for land supply
4.2 Planning for adequate supplies of land
4.3 Areas for improvement and leading practice insights
Chapter 5 Urban land supply - processes and outcomes (PDF - 468 Kb)
5.1 Delivering adequate supplies of land
5.2 Land supply outcomes
5.3 Leading practices and areas for improvement in land supply
Chapter 6 Infrastructure (PDF - 415 Kb)
6.1 Trends and emerging issues in infrastructure
6.2 State and territory frameworks for infrastructure provision
6.3 Developer contributions for local infrastructure
6.4 Delivering infrastructure
Chapter 7 Compliance costs (PDF - 397 Kb)
7.1 Data sources
7.2 Nature of compliance costs in development and rezoning applications
7.3 Direct costs of development approvals
7.4 Planning approval times
7.5 Alternative assessment pathways
7.6 Leading practices in development assessment
Chapter 8 Competition and retail markets (PDF - 652 Kb)
8.1 Competition and regulation
8.2 Impacts of planning on competition and efficiency
8.3 Barriers to business entry and operation imposed by planning and zoning
8.4 Implications of barriers for particular retail groups
8.5 Barriers presented through government implementation of plans
8.6 Business gaming of planning systems
8.7 Concluding remarks and leading practice approaches
Chapter 9 Governance of the planning system (PDF - 1448 Kb)
9.1 The importance of governance
9.2 Consistency and certainty of planning instruments
9.3 Resources, activity and performance
9.4 Mediating national, state and local interests
9.5 Allocating planning and assessment functions to different levels of government
Chapter 10 Transparency, accountability and community involvement (PDF - 434 Kb)
10.1 Transparency and accountability
10.2 Government involvement with community and business
Chapter 11 Referrals to state and territory government departments and agencies (PDF - 278 Kb)
11.1 Involvement in the planning system of other state-level bodies
11.2 Referral of development applications
11.3 Leading practice approaches to address state and territory coordination issues
Chapter 12 Commonwealth environmental and land issues (PDF - 435 Kb)
12.1 Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
12.2 Interaction of EPBC Act and state/territory environment legislation
12.3 Commonwealth land
12.4 Leading practice approaches to address Commonwealth coordination issues
Chapter 13 Comments from jurisdictions (PDF - 171 Kb)
Appendix A Conduct of the benchmarking study (PDF - 659 Kb)
Appendix B Approach to gathering information (PDF - 369 Kb)
Appendix C Indicators of the functioning of cities (PDF - 296 Kb)
Appendix D Overlays and council development restrictions (PDF - 162 Kb)
Appendix E Urban land supply (PDF - 1418 Kb)
Appendix F Jurisdictional infrastructure contribution arrangements (PDF - 188 Kb)
Appendix G Development assessment pathways used by local government (PDF - 206 Kb)
Appendix H Competitive aspects of retail markets (PDF - 264 Kb)
Appendix I Involvement of the state and territory environment, heritage, transport and fire fighting services in planning (PDF - 154 Kb)
References (PDF - 211 Kb)

Community survey results

Data was collected for the Productivity Commission by AC Nielson - view the AC Nielson internet survey results.

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