Feature article:
Ditch the scorecard

For the past two years, Moreland Council has been trialling a “Design Excellence Scorecard”, giving Council staff the authority to fast track certain planning applications that meet design criteria, by cutting our elected councillors out of decision making.
 
At their next monthly meeting on Wednesday 13 October, Moreland councillors are due to consider whether to make the Scorecard a permanent part of the Moreland Planning Scheme. Alongside many other local groups, Brunswick Residents Network believes that councillors should not continue with the Scorecard as a mechanism to determine planning applications. 
 
We urge all residents to contact their elected representative before the next Moreland Council meeting: tell them they should not integrate the Scorecard into the Moreland Planning Scheme and should abandon the current trial. Here’s why….
 
Background

Staff at Moreland Council decide the vast majority of planning applications under delegation. Many residents are frustrated that this has crept up over the years to more than 95% of all permit applications, as successive councillors have delegated more and more decision-making powers to staff.

But under Moreland’s Guidelines for the Exercise of Delegation for Planning Applications 2019, various exemptions apply that mean the Council (not staff) must make the decision. These guidelines give elected councillors back their right to decide on major and controversial development proposals. For instance, the guidelines state if at “least two councillors so request” or “ten or more objections are received”, an application must be voted on by Council. Crucially, however, applications through the Scorecard are exempt from giving councillors their right to decide. 

Delegates and officers usually make their assessment of applications against the objectives of the Moreland Planning Scheme (MPS). As the scheme is void of any mandated ‘desirable’ features such as quality materials, environmental sustainability, affordability, or accessible housing, developers can use the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to appeal against decisions on those things.  
 
The Scorecard first came before Moreland Council in 2017 as the “Fast Track program”, with the objective of fast tracking development projects of "architectural and environmental" merit.  Free kicks to developers included multiple meetings with council staff and guaranteed permit decision by officers (not at a public council meeting). Benchmark areas are: building design and materials, sustainability, accessibility and community benefit.
 
The fast-track development program was again brought before Council in early 2018 as the “Quality Design Scorecard” and finally adopted as the “Design Excellence Scorecard”, which was approved at the Council meeting in February 2019. It has been under trial since then.
 
Community opposition
 
From the beginning, a majority of councillors have ignored community concerns over this fast-tracking of planning applications.
 
On 18 September, BRN co-sponsored an online meeting with Fawkner Residents Association and the North East Brunswick Responsible Development Group, to examine the use of the Scorecard so far, and discuss why it should be rejected as a planning mechanism. 
 
More than 55 people joined the meeting and heard a keynote address from Steven Rowley, an urban planner who is a leading expert on the Victorian planning scheme (indeed, he literally wrote the book ‘The Victorian Planning System, Practice, Problems and Prospects’ to discuss the transformation of our urban environment in Melbourne). Other speakers included Joanna Stanley from BRN and community members Tim Glanville from Brunswick North and Salvatore Carta from Coburg.
 
You can watch their presentations online, which highlight a number of problems with the Scorecard that disadvantage community members from having a say about the development of our suburbs:  

• Community Scorecard meeting – Zoom recording of speakers  

Problems with the Scorecard 
 
With the Scorecard, Moreland Council is offering a rapid processing system – by cutting councillors out of the decision-making loop – supposedly to gain these other benefits that are not in the planning scheme. 
 
But this relies on firm guarantees of certainty to developers: if they meet the criteria of the Scorecard, planning staff must guarantee that the application will not be called in for decision by councillors. Our elected representatives must surrender their decision-making power.
 
As Stephen Rowley noted in his presentation: “Planning powers are democratically vested powers…. It is, in my view, a fundamental starting principle that it is inappropriate for councillors to be surrendering their democratically vested powers to planning officials, no matter how well they might go about that task.” 
 
In this way, the Scorecard is a fundamental overreach by Moreland Council. By trading away the democratic powers of councillors, it overrides the checks and balances built into the planning scheme. It is a fundamental principle that affected residents should have a say in their transformation of their community – Moreland must involve both professionals and community in making decisions about the transformation of our lived environment.
 
BRN is concerned that when the community and councillors are excluded from planning decisions, there is usually a “trade-off’ of design features (such as height) that are important to objectors. We think the Scorecard lacks fundamental criteria that are important, such as amenity impacts on neighbouring properties or preferred heights that are included in the Brunswick Structure Plan. Many standards like “amenity” are subjective and open to interpretation, so councillors are abdicating their responsibility to represent diverse community views when they hand over authority to staff.
 
Another problem is that an individual Scorecard building may have some design merit in its own right, but will set a precedents that developers will use in VCAT appeals. We often see officer and delegate reports approve buildings that do not numerically meet design clauses in the scheme. These include heights, setbacks, balcony size and internal amenity (room size and functional layout). Staff justify the design failures on other traded-off features such as rooftop gardens or green walled lightwells. 
 
In her presentation to the recent webinar, Jo Stanley says that a recent Scorecard delegate report includes a justification for apartments with tiny balconies and living rooms narrower than 3 metres: “These are greenwashed hotel-rooms, being passed-off as apartments in Brunswick.”
 
Consultation theatre 

The Scorecard operates behind closed doors at pre-application meetings between the developer and council staff – but then there‘s no way back from that, because Councillors do not get a say. Scorecard compliance must be certified by planning staff before there is any public notification about the project, locking the Council into a fixed position before any possible objectors can have a say. 
 
If residents, councillors and the developer later attend a Planning and Information Discussion on a project, it is meaningless because councillors cannot call the project in for decision – their presence is a sham. Moreland already has a poor reputation for “consultation theatre”, where staff go through the motions of seeking community opinion. This process will only further anger residents concerned about controversial projects!
 
During the webinar, Salvatore Carta outlined the horrific experience of residents at Linda Street and White Street, Coburg, where a developer switched a planning permit application from the normal process into the Scorecard mechanism during the current trial. Even Council staff now acknowledge this was a stuff-up, admitting “A learning from this case is that the permit applicant did not seek to redesign the proposal and meet the Scorecard until faced with significant community objection…it would be preferable that these improvements are achieved by meeting the Scorecard at the outset, together with earlier consultation with surrounding residents.”
 
Ditch the scorecard
 
While Scorecard projects have been under close scrutiny during the current trial, there is a danger that the process will be a “tick and flick” exercise in the future. Over-burdened or inexperienced planners may not have the time or inclination to look carefully at all aspects of a project that affect community amenity or neighbourhood character.
 
The whole point of this exercise is to get benefits from developers that are not legally required in the planning scheme. But can Moreland Council guarantee these benefits if developers later appeal to VCAT to override them? This might not even be the original developer who struck a deal – a common problem is when a new landholder comes on board who doesn't want to honour the original permit commitments. 
 
As a planning mechanism, Moreland Council’s Design Excellence Scorecard is fundamentally ill-conceived. It should be abandoned NOW by Moreland councillors.