The Nillumbik Council has put a significant community focus on its refresh of its Green Wedge Management Plan (GWMP). Following an extensive series of informal and formal community meetings the culmination was the employment of a ‘community panel’ in a process called by consultants Mosaic Lab ‘deliberative engagement’. The task for this panel was to come up with recommendations to Council to guide it in its preparation of an updated GWMP.
Ten thousand invitations were sent to Shire Residents to serve for five full Saturdays – which turned out to be six – and from acceptances some 40 were selected to represent the demography of the shire in terms of age, gender and location, with the tweak that 50% were to be rural. The actual numbers on day one were 23 women and 19 men, of which 23 were rural and 19 were from the towns.
At the outset the panel was provided with a comprehensive report of the lead up community engagement process, a copy of the current GWMP and a 179 page ‘Background Report’ prepared by Council officers. Notably, the panel was not directed to address particular issues and nor was it subject to any ideological standpoint.
Nillumbik’s is one of twelve green wedges, all of which exist in the face of the constant pressure to subdivide and develop because of the existence of a complex legislative and regulatory framework – of which municipal GWMPs are a small part – often referred to as the ‘planning scheme’. Most Melburnians would have some familiarity with the green wedge in reality and as a concept. It’s the bush and farmland, the green spaces between the growth corridors, often referred to as the ‘lungs of Melbourne’. The end of the urban sprawl. But very few have much, if any knowledge of the planning scheme – and this certainly applied to the community panel: most knew little of the planning scheme, and few had previously read the current or any GWMP.
Does this sound like a great idea? Certainly it is innovative, but why would you gather 40 non-experts to address such a complex task? They don’t understand how the planning scheme works and they don’t know what discretion a municipal council has within it. Furthermore, the Nillumbik green wedge does not ‘belong’ to Nillumbik: it is an asset of the whole of Melbourne, as are all the green wedges. So what was the Council’s reason for embarking on this project? Geoff Lawler, the Council’s consultant overseeing the entire community consultation project, suggested that the aim was ‘social cohesion’, but what that might mean in practice has not been explained. But an interesting exercise nevertheless. Forty strangers in a room for several full days spread over three months, working together to agree on some recommendations, starting pretty much from scratch. One does wonder what the Council had in mind when they adopted this approach.
The Panel process was run by facilitators from a company called Mosaic Lab who specialize in this so-called ‘deliberative engagement’ process. Given the politically charged context of this review there could have been some apprehension about the tenor of the Panel process, but the Panel’s work program was so programmed and subject to management in accordance with decision-making and conduct protocols that good order was never in doubt. Work was substantially done in small groups and significant decisions required 80% agreement of the whole panel.
The first three Saturdays were in the nature of orientation. The Panel heard from a range of speakers who were in the main selected by the Panel, drawing from a list resulting from nominations and votes in the community consultation phase, and from anywhere else. Speakers included
- Professor Michael Buxton, planning academic, who referred amongst other things to small-lot restructuring projects implemented in the Yarra Ranges when he was a Councillor there.
- Geoff Lawler, who described the idea of ‘buffer zones’, a strategy which encourages more subdivision just outside the urban growth boundary to act as an intermediate settlement density zone at the urban edge of the green wedge. The panel showed no interest in this idea.
- Craig Laplsey, ex Emergency Services Commissioner
- Cam Beardsell, well known ecologist from Parks Victoria. He sketched the broad progress towards conservation in the Nillumbik Green Wedge since the nineteenth century. And described a significant contributing factor to the kangaroo population boom in recent times: the proliferation of dams, allowing kangaroos to proliferate away from natural waterways.
- Penny Croucamp, a senior DELWP bureaucrat, who talked about the native vegetation removal rules, illustrated with very dense slides.
These presentations were brief, and although time was allowed for questions some panel members felt frustrated by a perceived lack of focus, that answers were being sought without sufficient clarity about the questions.
A presentation of a different kind was from George Apted, orchardist. This was in the nature of a brief case study about a significant agricultural business in the Nillumbik green wedge and the problems it faces – from larger scale businesses beyond the green wedge and from encroaching urban development. The state of agriculture in the green wedges is a major and complex issue, but well beyond the capacity of the Community Panel to address.
The end of this phase saw the panel write a long and diverse list of ‘issues’ on bits of paper, and have them blu-tacked to a wall. It was a sprawling and diffuse list, but it was a start. Day 4 saw these issues transformed into a working list of draft, potential Panel recommendations, which then became the focus of Mosaic Lab’s process. The draft recommendations were entered into a shared word processor, Google Docs, and subject to development by three person groups – each group at a separate table and with the recommendation of interest open on a notebook computer. All text, including the recommendation itself and any ‘rationale’, was created and entered by panel members.
During a break Mosaic Lab printed out each of the 41 recommendations in a format which allowed each member to add their rating and any comments. Ratings were on a five point scale, but with descriptions ‘love it’, ‘like it’, ‘can live with it’, ‘lament it’, ‘loathe it’ and ‘confused’. All recommendations were laid out on tables and Panel members walked around adding ratings and comments until all members had individually rated all recommendations. The result: 29 of the 41 recommendations received in excess of 80% support, meaning they were rated at ‘can live with it’ or higher.
Days 5 and 6 were essentially devoted to the further development of the recommendations prior to a final vote on the last day, but some considered that some processes were problematic. Council officers supplied substantial feedback about the clarity and practicability of the recommendations, but no time was reserved to ensure that this feedback was processed. And Day 5 saw an informal process which aimed to achieve some rationalization by combining some recommendations with others, but which due to Planning Scheme misunderstandings created logical conflict and reduced the validity of the prior voting – but these issues were resolved.
The final vote was noteworthy for being conducted on smartphones. As each recommendation was displayed on a big screen each Panel member voted on his or her smart phone using the established scale. The result was that the score was available immediately.
And with the additions of some trimmings, such as a preamble, that was the Panel’s output, although mention should be made of the ‘minority report’ issue. There was supposedly provision for the inclusion of recommendations which received less than 80% support if at least three panel members nominated them. In the event, tacked on to the end of the recommendations was a 23 page dissertation which was prepared independently, which the Panel as a whole had never seen, let alone voted upon. Several panel members have expressed dissatisfaction, suggesting that despite its ‘Minority Report #1’ heading it was not a product of the panel process and should not be included with the recommendations.
Speaking of social cohesion, mention should be made of the PALS-orchestrated walkout. Not that it unduly influenced the proceedings of the Panel, since it only involved three Panel members and for only one day, but it does relate to significant political context. PALS published on their Facebook page what they called an ‘Urgent Open letter re Community Panel’ to ‘PALS, Nillumbik Shire CEO and Councillors’, and ‘All Nillumbik Shire Inhabitants’. It expressed dissatisfaction with the make up, conduct and direction of the Panel. This was a surprise to many of the remaining Panel members who could not recall these issues being raised. Some Panel members expressed shock at apparently abusive comments directed at the Panel on social media, but none of that was reflected inside the Panel. It is not known what PALS, or the three Panel members who absented themselves on Day 4 hoped to achieve, but in any event they elected to return for Day 5. Since Day 4 was the first really constructive day in the program it was probably not the best one to miss.
The recommendations are now public and with the Council. You can see them here. Broadly speaking, and aside from the so-called ‘Minority Report #1’, they represent support for the continuing and even stronger maintenance of Nillumbik’s green wedge.