Systematizing the production of environmental plans: an Australian example

Environmental planning legislation in New South Wales now requires local government authorities to draw up statutory plans that take into account, among other concerns, both the biophysical and the social environmental issues within their jurisdictions. The SIRO-PLAN method of plan production provides a systematic mechanism for fulfilling this requirement. This article describes the application of the method by planning researchers over 18 months to the production of a Local Environmental Plan for a rural local government in New South Wales. The policy formulation, the purposive data collection, and the deliberate adjustment of plans in order to recognize interest group requirements were all found to be valuable features of the method, while the translation of the ultimately chosen land-use plan into the explicit regulatory controls available to the local government authority was found to require further refinement. The capacity of SIRO-PLAN to quantify the resolution of competing environmental concerns in the final plan, although of value to planning researchers, proved too arcane for traditionally trained planners.