After studying Public Involvement and Community Development (4047ENV) at university, volunteering for the Right to the City Brisbane, and working on the winning proposal for a local community planning network, I have learnt that there is an urgent need for the improvement of public participation in planning processes here in South East Queensland.

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Late last year, an investigation by Four Corners into shady developer deals and political donations in the sunny city of the Gold Coast made headlines, causing public outrage over the way our cities are governed, planned and developed. Public submissions may not amount to much when a councillor's approval for a development proposal has already been bought by tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the developers themselves.

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This system puts planners between a rock and a hard place. The nature of our work is to serve the public interest, but how public interests are defined and interpreted is in and of itself a wicked problem.

 

The prevailing belief of property developers is that lining our coast with luxury high-rise apartment buildings will benefit the city best by driving economic development. However, community groups such as Save Our Spit argue that protecting public greenspace from being developed instead is in the best interest of the local community, environment and economy.

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