29 September 2015
The announcement that Gary White has been appointed NSW Chief Planner reinforces the importance of driving growth, says the Urban Taskforce.
“Gary White has a good range of planning experience from local government to state government and in the private sector with MacroPlan Dimasi,” says Urban Taskforce CEO, Chris Johnson. “It is important that the NSW Chief Planner takes on a public communication and advocacy role about the importance of growth and change and promotes sustainable, high-quality urban density and development.”
“The Urban Taskforce is keen to come on the communication journey with Gary White to encourage communities to expect and embrace change in their neighbourhood, particularly lively precincts of higher-density development around transport nodes such as railway stations.”
“Too often media releases from the Department of Planning and Environment come from a ‘spokesperson’ rather than from a person the community and the industry can relate to. Gary White would be a good person to be the planning advocate.”
“It is good to see that Gary’s role will include increasing the efficiency of the NSW planning system. This is an excellent opportunity for Gary to use his experience from working in Queensland, where the planning system seems to be less complex than NSW.”
“An example of a tool from the Queensland planning system that could be transferred to NSW is the State Assessment and Referral Agency (SARA) system where a single state agency co-ordinates all development referrals to a multitude of government agencies and departments.
