In reading up on the history of land use planning in NSW, I came across an interesting article on the development of local government. This proved to be a subject worthy of discussion in its own right, but also an appropriate preamble to a future discussion of land use planning.<\/p>\n
It seems that we were a little slow off the mark here in NSW, given that the first vestiges of local government appeared with the establishment of the Perth Town Trust<\/a> in 1838 and the election of the first Adelaide Municipal Council<\/a> in 1840, only a few years after British settlement in those locations. We did start down that path here in NSW in 1842, with the establishment of the Sydney Corporation, but that was more than 50 years after the arrival of the First Fleet.<\/p>\n It will probably come as little surprise to learn that resistance to the establishment of local government was tied, at least in part, to the prospect of compulsory land rates\u2014many of those with influence also had significant property holdings. To be fair, Governor Brisbane<\/a> had established a Legislative Council<\/a> in 1823, but it was generally concerned with more weighty matters than Sydney\u2019s municipal affairs. Nonetheless, the Sydney City Incorporation Act of 1842<\/a> established an elected body to manage primary services such as street lighting and drainage. Although all property holders were subject to land rates, election to the new Council was open only to adult males holding property worth at least \u00a31000.<\/p>\n The NSW Constitution Act of 1842<\/a> also introduced a system of district councils for the settled and surveyed areas of NSW. Interestingly, some sources<\/a> suggest that this was less to do with granting a level of autonomy to the districts than is was to help defray the costs associated with maintaining gaols outside the convict regime, since transportation of convicts to NSW had all but ceased by this time and \u2018imperial funding\u2019 for the colony had been reduced accordingly. Nonetheless, the civic powers of these councils related to roads, bridges, public buildings and schools. Unfortunately, opposition to property rates proved even stronger away from Sydney and this system collapsed.<\/p>\n The Municipalities Act of 1858<\/a> subsequently attempted to address a growing demand for improved local public works by allowing individual towns or municipalities to choose to incorporate on presentation of a petition signed by 50 or more \u2018householders\u2019 in the absence of a sufficient counter petition. This Act also conferred regulatory responsibilities on Councils, requiring them to manage matters of public health, safety and decency, including \u201ccare of the destitute poor and sick\u201d, \u201cdeserted children\u201d and the \u201csuppression of \u2026 houses of ill fame\u201d. Unfortunately, once again, many of these provisions failed due to a level of apathy amongst ratepayers (who were invariably not the direct beneficiaries of many of these services).<\/p>\n Less than 1% of the NSW land area was under local management when the Local Government Act<\/a> was introduced in 1906, making local councils compulsory. This Act was updated in 1919<\/a> and remained the legislative basis for Local Government in NSW until it was replaced with the current Act<\/a> in 1993.<\/p>\n