Dress codes for development codes?

Should images of bikini-clad women on bikes be allowed to sell apartments?

In recent weeks the ACT Government’s chief planner, Ben Ponton, has said the ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate is considering new advertising guidelines in response to ‘sexy’ building site hoardings cropping up around our city.

Several of our elected leaders, including Minister for Women Yvette Berry and Labor MLA Tara Cheyne, have raised the use of “inappropriate” images, particularly after one hoarding was referred to the Advertising Standards Bureau.

While the complaint was dismissed, MLAs say their offices are being inundated with protests from the public about women in showers and swimsuits being used to sell apartments.

Ponton has said his office intends to explore whether the development application process can be used to regulate advertising on hoardings. Speaking to ABC Radio, Ponton pointed to the ACT bus network, where “there are guidelines in place already about what’s acceptable advertising and these guidelines look to reflect current community values. We’re hoping to explore something similar to apply to the planning approvals process”.

But is this really something we should be aiming for in Canberra? I spoke to several people in the development industry, and here’s what they had to say.

Firstly, a town planner pointed to the long history of the ACT’s planning regime trying to control advertising, “back to the NCDC days and the colour code that buildings should be white”.

“But you can’t regulate images,” she said. We could reel in the size and scale of advertising, “but community standards are not a planning control”. Where would we draw the line, my colleague asks? Do we want to use planning as a tool to perform a social judgement role?

A developer colleague also thinks this is “madness”. He says the idea “opens the door to even more discussion about the standards of a vocal minority rather than what we as a community ought to aspire to”.

The “worst-case scenario” is an amendment to the planning code that stifles any comment that others may find offensive. The marriage equality debate is an example that several people I spoke to used. “All those that are morally opposed to marriage equality would find offence at painting the roundabout in Braddon as a rainbow”, one person commented.

Another colleague wonders how we’d develop the test to determine if hoardings meet our collective community standards. Would it be by assessing the number of people walking past? He laughingly compared the absurdity to the erstwhile European model of assessing odour. Planners would “go out as a body and sniff the atmosphere, and based on their collective judgment, decide if an odour was offensive.” Would that be the model we’d use?

The lawyer’s perspective is also instructive. The idea is “problematic and not an appropriate use of planning powers,” is her opinion.

“This isn’t one for the planners. Where do you draw the line? Are you going to prescribe styles of fixtures and fittings, designs and features? Planning is about impact on the environment and design – not beyond that.”

If something is offensive according to our advertising standards, the lawyer says, then planning doesn’t need to get involved in an area that’s already regulated. And if the advertising standards say something is not offensive, and the planning code says it is, we could end up with the lawyers fighting it out in court between “a local rule in a plan against federal-based decision-making about what’s offensive”.

Not one person I spoke to showed any enthusiasm for the type of advertising at the centre of this debate, but their question was always the same: how would we codify community values into the fabric of our city?

“Dress codes as development codes,” another industry stalwart puts it.

“As a town planner, I ought to be flattered to think that the ACT Government and the community holds my profession is such high esteem that we would be entrusted to arbitrate on community values. Alas, in my own case, I fear the community may find my personal approach to the task overly draconian. Raised as I was in a Scots Presbyterian home, I take a dim view of sexuality, flamboyancy and immodest dress ever mindful of the Kirk’s warnings that such things may lead to dancing.”

This comment made me laugh out loud. But is it really a laughing matter? Is the regulation of morality a matter for planning? What do you think?