Governance Responses to Rapid Growth in Environmentally Sensitive Areas of Coastal Australia

Abstract

The twin forces of rising affluence and population are altering coastal communities around the world. High amenity, environmentally sensitive areas—particularly attractive, non-metropolitan coastal environments—are witnessing a tidal wave of in migration from former urbanites. As a result, these communities are struggling to accommodate growing numbers of people with urban tastes and rural dreams in areas with governance structures and physical infrastructure designed for occasional tourists. This article looks at how governance frameworks in coastal Australia respond to the profound environmental, social, and cultural implications of this process. We offer a typology of non-metropolitan coastal growth settings—from exurban contexts to isolated coastal hamlets—and identify the main environmental, social, economic, and governance issues they face. We then outline the policy and legislative framework governing coastal areas in Australia and show how this framework is interpreted at the local level through an analysis of five local plans covering different coastal settings.

Keywords:

• amenity migration-coast environments
• coastal governance
• planning

Notes

The Australian States are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory were not included in this component of the study.

Quantitative data from this analysis is reported elsewhere (Gurran et al., 2005).

We used Australian Bureau of Statistics information from the previous two Population Censuses (1996 and 2001) as well as more recent estimated resident population data and building approval statistics (Gurran et al., 2005).

Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2001) indicator of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage, which uses a combination of indicators (e.g., employment, income, health) to derive a composite score for comparison with other areas.

In Australia, ICM is commonly referred to as “Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM).”

Planning schemes from Western Australia and the Northern Territory were not included in this review because the very limited local authority for land use planning and development assessment decisions in these jurisdictions means that local plans are not comparable with those of the other Australian States.