The planning system is not ‘red tape’, it’s the safeguards that make communities liveable, safe, and sustainable

Read Article

Summary 

The article from the Australian journal The Fifth Estate was written by Emma Riley of the Planning Institute of Australia and challenges the common narrative that planning regulations are merely "red tape" holding back development. Instead, it argues that planning systems provide essential safeguards to ensure communities are safe, liveable, and environmentally sustainable. The piece emphasizes that weakening planning rules in the name of speeding up housing construction risks undermining protections for heritage, the environment, and community wellbeing. It also highlights how thoughtful planning contributes to long-term housing quality and resilience, rather than just immediate supply. The article concludes that dismissing planning as an obstacle ignores its role in balancing private development ambitions with public interest and collective rights.

Comment on this Article

Applied to Calgary, this perspective directly supports the view that blanket upzoning is not genuine city planning but an abandonment of it. Instead of carefully considering how increased density will affect existing communities, infrastructure capacity, and neighbourhood character, blanket upzoning transfers these critical decisions to developers. This shifts planning from a proactive, community-oriented process into a reactive one, where private interests drive density without the benefit of contextual studies or long-term vision.

In this sense, blanket upzoning undermines the very principles of planning the article defends—careful analysis, public consultation, and balancing of interests—by treating housing supply as the sole metric and sidelining the safeguards that make communities functional and liveable.