New State Spaces and Contested Territories: A Critical Analysis of Joint Regional Planning Panels

Abstract

This article critically analyses the Joint Regional Planning Panels (JRPPs), a series of planning panels in the New South Wales planning system predominantly made up of appointed planning experts to determine ‘regionally significant development’. The stated intent of the JRPPs is to improve objectivity and transparency in planning decision-making, however, this has come at the expense of the traditional role of local councils in determining planning applications. Key to this analysis are Brenner's concept of ‘new state spaces’ as evolutionary models of urban governance which act between conventional levels and hierarchies of political authority, and Allmendinger and Haughton's conceptualisation of new state spaces of planning operating in ‘soft spaces’ and ‘fuzzy boundaries’. This article explores the changing nature and function of the JRPPs since their establishment in 2009, and highlights that while opportunities exist for new state spaces to ‘harden’ as enduring tiers of urban governance, there is a pervasive need for connections between territory and politics to give popular legitimacy to permanent shifts of authority.