Reflections on a post-COVID-19 environment

All our behaviours have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Confinement to home, working from home, schooling at home have all placed new pressures on the way in which we use our dwellings. When leaving home for exercise is one of the few legitimate reasons for going out, our public parks, footpaths, walking trails and other open spaces have seen a surge in use. By contrast, road usage has dwindled. Permitted activities outside the home have contracted the radius within which we operate to shop and recreate.

Once restrictions on our movement are lifted, will our behaviours revert back to pre-COVID-19 modes or will there be lasting modifications? How will we re-imagine our living, working and recreation spaces as a result of COVID-19?

Net community benefit has long been a principle embedded in our planning schemes:

Planning and responsible authorities should endeavour to integrate the range of planning policies relevant to the issues to be determined and balance conflicting objectives in favour of net community benefit and sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations (clause 71.02-3).

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia have demonstrated the community’s willingness to accept restrictions on individuals’ behaviour, and indeed dramatic impacts on their economic wellbeing, in the interests of net community benefit. There has been a heightened awareness of the sense and importance of community, and articulation of its virtues during the pandemic.

As planners and planning decision makers, we ought to be reflecting post-COVID-19 on how our built environments have stood up to the demands placed on them during the pandemic. At this stage, it is too early to say what changes in behaviour will be permanent. However, the potential for more working from home, IMP026_Impact_VEPLA_60mm H X 184.5mm_Campaign 2019.pdf 2

Helen Gibson AM

on-line learning, and electronic meetings are likely to influence the nature of workplaces, education facilities and the need for travel in the future. As any changes in behaviours consolidate, so demand for any changes in built environments will emerge. It will be important for the market to be alert to such demand and for decision makers to be flexible in accommodating responses. Likewise, reflection about the functioning of public spaces in the light of changed patterns of behaviours may lead to changes in the detailing of our urban environments.

But, so far as adopted plans and policies are concerned, the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the basic soundness that underlies Victoria’s Planning Policy Framework, such as:

• Developing settlements that will support resilient communities and their ability to adapt and change (clause 11.01-1S).

• Develop compact urban areas that are based around existing or planned activity centres to maximise accessibility to facilities and services (clause 11.01-1S).

Principles of urban consolidation and walkable neighbourhoods serve the community well in times of constraint on personal movement, although more generous and flexible private living spaces may be required if individual dwellings are to be utilised for work and learning activities more frequently and for longer periods.

Nothing that I can see would necessarily suggest that adopted plans and policies based on Victoria’s Planning Policy Framework require dramatic new approaches post-COVID-19. Rather, the dominant need, as society struggles to re-establish its economic wellbeing, will be to ensure that processes to streamline decision making are implemented, which ensure that the principle of net community benefit is given full weight.

Helen Gibson AM

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