More than 100 people gathered in Mount Lawley at a Labor-led forum questioning the way the state government has opted to tackle urban sprawl.
After reforms five years ago, it is now Development Assessment Panels - not councils – which decide on all Perth developments worth over $10 million, and most over $2 million.
Angry about the process they say has stripped their power to shape their neighbourhoods, two-thirds of Perth councils have now either passed or are working on motions to push the government to 'scrap the DAPs'.
The government insists DAPs are facilitating necessary development and that protests are counterproductive.
Federal member for Perth Alannah MacTiernan hosted a forum in Mount Lawley on Thursday to hear concerns from councillors and mayors from Vincent, Bayswater, Subiaco, Stirling, Cottesloe, Cambridge and Nedlands, and community groups including Save the South Perth Peninsula, the Mount Lawley Society and the Western Suburbs Alliance.
Former Local Government Planning Association president Ian MacRae spoke of WA Local Government Association research that showed DAPs had 'bogged down' the system.
He said two-thirds of the decisions going to DAPs would previously have been dealt with under delegated authority and not got to councils at all.
He said decisions by DAPs were, in most cases, in line with those councils would have made and the added bureaucracy was expensive and time-consuming - an average 86 days for a DAP decision in 2011 had blown out to 114.6 by 2015.
"This lack of performance should be a huge embarrassment for the government," he said.
Ian MacRae said DAPs had added another layer of bureaucracy but not improved speed. Photo: Emma Young
He said interstate governments had implemented higher DAP thresholds, such as $20 million to ensure the decisions made were actually of state significance, whereas Perth's $2 million threshold meant DAPs were deciding mainly on mixed-use and residential apartment blocks.
Many speakers voiced concerns about discretionary freedoms.
Vincent mayor John Carey, seeking Labor preselection for Perth's state seat, conceded councils needed to address poor town planning schemes but said DAPs would still be able to "just push council policy aside."
He said the processes were unfair.
"The community gets a consultation period of two weeks and then they get a late notice of a meeting to be held in five days," he said.
"Then they have to give 72 hours notice to give a presentation against a planning consultant who has been preparing their case for months. Developers love it because, despite the delays, they see it as an easier process.
"If they [DAPs] are not going to go, there is at least a range of considerations we should look at, basic stuff like lifting community engagement, assisting residents to make a contribution and balancing representation between councillors and non-elected officials, and increasing the extraordinary threshold of $2 million.
"We must tackle this key issue of three people with no connection to the community exercising discretions that contradict prescribed policies about plot ratio and height."
Vincent mayor John Carey was the first to pass a motion urging DAPs to be scrapped. Photo: Emma Young
Mount Lawley Society president Paul Collins pointed to "significant conflicts of interest" in DAP panellists who were drawn from a small Perth industry.
In one instance, he said a DAP member had appeared as an applicant in the same authority area, seeking the panel's discretion on an "over-height, over-bulk development".
"It's like a criminal law barrister arguing in the Supreme Court for a lenient sentence for his guilty client, then appearing as the judge setting precedent for other citizens guilty of similar crimes," he said.
Bayswater Mayor Barry McKenna said at the last council meeting, residents delivered a 300-signature petition asking for the most recent DAP decision to be taken to the Supreme Court.
"Our lawyers said the state government had really stitched it up so you could not take action," he said.
"The only way is to go to a state government election and for our elected members to stand up and be counted."
A resident speaks. Photo: Emma Young
A Bayswater resident stood to say experts should only ever be used as advisers and consultants, not decision-makers.
"By doing so, you say anyone who is not an expert has less value in their opinion," he said.
"That is fundamentally against democracy."
"The vast majority of residents have this vague idea that elected members are actually making these decisions," Swan Councillor Ian Johnson said.
"But everything over $2 million goes to a DAP and everything under it to council staff with delegated authority.
"The impact on Swan is a vast number of poorly-designed blocks of flats, the slums of the future, lived in by young families with no gardens, no trees. Some even appear to have no windows. There are no green spaces, no playgrounds, no public transport - it is a planning disaster."
Opposition planning spokeswoman Rita Saffioti promised to take their concerns into account when formulating her planning policy, to be announced before the March 2017 state election.
Rita Saffioti did not outline a policy, but promised she would before the election. Photo: Emma Young
Planning Minister Donna Faragher said DAPs had brought an additional level of technical expertise and professionalism to WA's planning system since their introduction in 2011.
"The DAPs are working very well and there are no plans to abolish the existing system which has dealt with more than 1000 development applications worth $30 billion over the past five years," the minister said.
"DAPs have helped to improve the balance between technical advice and local knowledge by providing more transparency, consistency and reliability in decision-making on complex development applications.
"DAPs must make decisions in the same way as local governments, that is, in accordance with the local government's planning scheme and all applicable planning policies.
She said she was happy to meet with councils and other organisations to discuss their concerns.
"Local government elected members and planning officers have a critical role in planning for the future development in their jurisdictions. They draft the rules local planning scheme and policies against which future development applications will be assessed and which bind the decisions of local government, DAPs and the State Administrative Tribunal."
The DAP Affected Communities group, which was collecting 'scrap the DAP' petition signatures at the forum, is organising a meeting for next week in order to further agitate for political change.
