Have your say: Draft Engagement Charter

Community engagement is at the heart of the new planning system that will be introduced over the next 3 to 5 years. The Community Engagement Charter is the first of its kind in Australia and supports new and innovative ways to talk to communities and other interested parties about planning issues.

The draft Charter will provide South Australian’s with greater opportunity to shape how areas will grow and develop into the future:

• ensuring better planning outcomes that reflect community aspirations
• building trust in the decision making process, and
• fostering the community’s understanding of the planning system.

Central to the draft Charter are five key principles for engagement, central to engagement activities for planning changes, particularly changes to planning rules:

• Engagement is genuine.
• Engagement is inclusive and respectful.
• Engagement is fit for purpose.
• Engagement is informed and transparent.
• Engagement is reviewed and improved.

The existing legislative process sets out an undesirable one size fits all approach to engagement. The Charter replaces this with new principles that will encourage early engagement and enable engagement to be better tailored to suit the proposed change to planning rules or strategic plans, taking into account the level of potential impact and level of interest.

The State Planning Commission has a key role in ensuring engagement meets the principles of the Charter.

An accompanying guide provides a step by step framework for engagement planning and evaluation for those undertaking engagement.

The six week consultation period will be underway from Monday, 30 October 2017 to Friday, 8 December 2017.

Have your say

• Lodge a submission on the Community Engagement Charter to have your say
• See Community Engagement Charter page for further information