Environmental Planning: Lessons From New South Wales, Australia in the Integration of Land-Use Planning and Environmental Protection
By John L. Horwich
INTRODUCTION
This article is one product of my recent four-month stay in Australia as a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Centre for Environmental Law at the Australian National University. I sought the fellowship out of a desire to study land-use planning in a country experiencing a similar tension between growth and environmental protection as are parts of the United States. I wanted to learn whether state and local governments in Australia had developed techniques that we in the United States might be able to use for resolving this tension. My study was rewarded with the discovery that several Australian states have adopted creative approaches to land-use planning, with concepts and techniques adaptable to the United States. One typical example, the environmental planning scheme of the State of New South Wales, offers ideas worthy of serious consideration by legislators, planners, lawyers, and other citizens concerned with the quality of our environment.
This article is one product of my recent four-month stay in Australia as a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Centre for Environmental Law at the Australian National University. I sought the fellowship out of a desire to study land-use planning in a country experiencing a similar tension between growth and environmental protection as are parts of the United States. I wanted to learn whether state and local governments in Australia had developed techniques that we in the United States might be able to use for resolving this tension. My study was rewarded with the discovery that several Australian states have adopted creative approaches to land-use planning, with concepts and techniques adaptable to the United States. One typical example, the environmental planning scheme of the State of New South Wales, offers ideas worthy of serious consideration by legislators, planners, lawyers, and other citizens concerned with the quality of our environment.
