Town Planning - Why?

We hear in the press about “red tape”, and developers lamenting the extra time and costs for town planning approvals. If it’s so costly why do we do it? This is a good question.

Town planning under pins our whole economy!

The true source of wealth is in land. Therefore if we don’t have a safe system to manage how land is created, managed and used, then our economy would not be as strong or secure. We see this in many third world countries.

Investment is made in situations of certainty and ability to estimate return. So town planning is like road rules for developing land, and, despite the anguish may have when we have to get an approval, it actually attracts investment.

Imagine what it would be like to try to get a loan for a house if you couldn’t be certain that the land value would remain because your land could become contaminated by an industrial factory starting up next door? You probably wouldn’t get the loan.