Stephen Rowley

I’m excited to announce that I have commenced a part-time role as Senior Associate at SGS Economics and Planning.

This follows several years of working with SGS as a subconsultant on various strategic projects, and will allow me to work on those projects in a more organic manner. I’m looking forward to more involvement with the really interesting work SGS do, and am really pleased to be joining a consultancy with such a strong ethical foundation and public interest focus.  

As mentioned, this is a part-time role, and in the balance of my time I will continue with a range of other work and activities, including my role as a Planning Editor for the VPRs, training, teaching, research and writing.

I will continue with private consultancy work under my own banner here at RCI Planning. However if you are interested in hiring me for strategic work (including expert work before panels) please approach me through SGS.

I will also be accelerating the process (which had already started) of easing out of VCAT advocacy work – I don’t expect to take on any new VCAT appeals as an advocate. I am still available, through RCI Planning, for expert witness work before VCAT.

The new edition of my second book, The Victorian Planning System: Practice, Problems, and Prospects, is out now. 

The book has been comprehensively revised, with factual updates throughout. It has also been thoroughly re-theorised, drawing more on literature about regulatory design, and more carefully drawing put principles of good decision-making and good system design. As a result its critique of the operation of the system has been considerably sharpened. I think I’m much clearer now than I was in 2017 about why the Victorian system – which seems so sound in theory – has performed so disappointingly over recent decades. I also try to outline an alternate approach to system design that I argue can lead us away from the repeated cycle of unhelpful or counterproductive reform that we have seen over the last two decades.

I received news news yesterday of a terrific win at VCAT for local residents, against a Bunnings on Glenlyon Road in Brunswick (the decision is here). This was an epic case involving nine expert witnesses (including four traffic experts!) and twelve days of hearings.

The decision is interesting in terms of how we treat car-oriented uses in activity centres; I really hope it helps push retailers like Bunnings towards more numerous, smaller in-centre locations with fewer car parking spaces. (I can dream, can’t I?). It was also an interesting early test case of the new transport policy at cl 18, which was revised after the hearing. We got to make further submissions to address this changes, and I think the new policy substantially strengthened our case.

I am proud to have been involved in this one, supported by a truly passionate group of residents.

Some media and reports about this one, in approximate descending order of detail:

• Brunswick Residents Network Newsletter (includes a detailed write-up from the local community perspective).
• The Brunswick Voice
• The Green Left
• News.com.au
• The Australian
• Daily Mail
• Herald Sun (paywalled)

[Edit: this lasted a matter of a few days before the government pulled the plug on it in the face of opposition form the property sector, which is bitterly disappointing. I have posted a little more about this on LinkedIn here and here.]

We finally have a social housing contribution mechanism in Victoria, with the government introducing a financial level on most new residential development that will go towards the instruction of new social housing. (See here). This is somewhat analogous to the way new development must contribute to the provision of public open space, and hence marks a shift towards seeing social housing as vital community infrastructure.

I am proud to have been a Member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee that fed into this policy process. However the real credit for this outcome goes first to those who advocated to get the MAC up as a step towards this; others on the MAC who made a much more substantive contribution than I did; and finally those who nutted out the detail afterwards. (I’m not naming names because I didn’t see enough of the process to do so fairly.)

But this is such a big deal that I’m nevertheless very proud of my small peripheral role.

The February 2022 issue of Planning News contained a very nice write-up following the award of my PIA Fellowship in December.

Here’s the full text:

Over the first 20 years of his career Dr Stephen Rowley has made a very significant contribution to planning as an inspiring and passionate lecturer, through his publications, his engagement in planning debates, and his continued advocacy for planning reform. Stephen is one of the profession’s leading voices on the operation of the Victorian planning system. His critical insights into the structure of the VPPs and their intersection with planning practice are highly valued across the sector.

His comprehension of complex matters and his representation skills before VCAT are often sought by communities, colleagues and clients. Stephen has a reputation as a skilled critical thinker, with an ability to cut through traditional planning issues. Through his work Stephen has demonstrated the opportunity for planners to take a more central role in their profession, rather than being sidelined in decision making and the interpretation of the planning system ad its policies. Between what has passed and what is to come, Stephen’s positive, reforming influence on planning within Victoria will be for decades to come.