b'MUDD 25 - Urban Intensity l Urban Design - SydneyThere is a logical and politically acceptable way to takeintended to stabilise and conserve property values a significant step towards understanding urban land as aand in general to make the business of the city more public good, known as value capture. When major publicefficient and the life of the city more healthful (Hawkes investments are made that have locational impactsfor1968, p.11). Ten years later, in 1926, the Supreme Court instance a new railway station or high school, ratherof the US gave constitutional validity to the theory that than investments with more diffuse impacts such asprogressive lawyers had been arguing: that regulating new rail carriages or smaller class sizesit is knownthe use and development of urban land, through land with certainty that significant unearned increases inuse zoning, was a legitimate use of traditional municipal unimproved land values are enjoyed by identifiablepolice powers to protect public safety, health, morals property owners as a direct consequence of the largeand welfare (Bettman 1924, p.839). and positive externalities generated by the investment. These private gains can be estimated, and the passiveIn Australia, lawyers, officials and governments never beneficiaries can be mapped and identified. All that mustused the word morals but they used the other words, then be done, for proper management of public fundsalong with orderly and proper planning, preservation and for equity, is for some of this value to be capturedof amenity and public interest, as matters for through simple mechanisms such as a local levy, aconsideration in determining a development application, rate increase, or a land tax surcharge applied to thosebeside compliance with plans and regulations, and beneficiaries (Dawkins 2019). impacts on others. In this context, adding the public interest to the list of considerations was like adding How are we to understand what is in the publicanything else. That is what some current planning interest? Acts do say: for example, any other relevant matter (Victoria, Planning and Environment Act) and any other While developers are expected to pursue private goals planning consideration the local government considers driven by the hope of maximising the profitability of theappropriate (Western Australia, Local Planning Schemes project, sometimes cruelly called greedgovernmentsRegulations). The NSW Environmental Planning and are expected to defend and advance the public interest.Assessment Act requires the consent authority to That is a very loaded term, which needs to be lookedconsider (i) the provisions of planning instruments, (ii) into carefully. the likely impacts of the proposal, (iii) the suitability of the site, (iv) any public submissions, and, as the final Elizabeth Farrelly is a leading public intellectual inconsideration, (v) the public interest. Australia, and she recently gave an address to the Committee for North Sydney about urban developmentWhen used in these ways, the public interest is a highly in Sydney. She asked the appropriate question: Whatmisleading concept.is planning actually for? Her central message was this: Planning has one job: to defend the public interestandThe public interest concept (or slogan) may be so to value and create the public spaces (Farrelly 2019).meaningful when used as Elizabeth Farrelly did, to frame To those in the audience, this seemed like the rightpolitical demands. The concept can be a useful technical question, and the best answer. tool in carefully dissecting difficult questions of public policy. When used as if the term has specific content, or In this context the public interest is a broad politicalshared meaning, it is empty. measure to test whether urban management, and government as a whole, is generally serving all or mostIn shaping cities, the public interest is also deceptive, citizens rather than delivering sectional benefits toprecisely because even private urban projects are particular groups or special interests. There is a longalready more public than private, being a fixed point in tradition of urbanists claiming support for their work ona shared space where value is created by the public. the grounds that it serves the public interest.It remains, even in the NSW legislation, because it is a convenient short cut to a decision, allowing policy This idea received formal expression when zoningmakers and regulators to avoid assessing what the became widespread in the USA in the 1920s. Prior toprivate and public values actually are.that time, when the New York Zoning Ordinance wasIn coming to a decision on land use policies, plans enacted in 1916, it was enough to say that the rules wereand projectsthe direction and extent of urban 88P3-20200301-SYDNEY STUDIO.indd 53 2020/3/5 21:53:54'