Public Land @ 5 Million – Governance and Fiscal Reform

Public Land @ 5 Million – Governance and Fiscal Reform

Despite the redrawing of the Urban Growth Boundary, Melbourne @ 5 million poses a major urban consolidation challenge for the metropolis.

Careful management and investment of public land and the public domain, are critical to successful consolidation.  To achieve the desired levels of densification, a significant proportion of Melbourne will need to overturn the traditional British anti-urbanism embedded in our suburban city structure, and embrace public space as the central rather than residual element. This will require different governance/institutional arrangements, including the reinstatement of a regional planning authority, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity.

Reform of governance and institutional arrangements will also require reconsideration of the commercialisation, corporatisation and privatisation models for managing urban infrastructure which became popular in the 1990’s.  These models have been useful in some areas of infrastructure but are now inappropriate for key aspects of public land.

A further key challenge is raising the funds for investment in an enriched public domain.  Again, radical reform needs to be on the agenda, including the introduction of development licence fees, to recover part of the uplift in land value generated by land use rationing and public provision of infrastructure.

See further press coverage in The Age.

Download the conference paper.