Professor Buxton, with decades of planning experience within and outside of government, is a trenchant and tenacious critic of the Andrew's Labor administration's embrace of widespread, limited-control development which has seen shopping strips levelled for high-rise, suburbs choked with townhouse infill, heritage and planning controls overridden.

He is a member of Charter 29, a group of environment and planning professionals whose primary belief is legislated planning in Victoria fails many of its fundamental conditions. Their name refers to Melbourne's 1929 Plan for General Development, a far-sighted blueprint for a sustainable Melbourne which, the Charter 29 group say, was never adequately implemented - and is still failing.

For example, despite the state's planning minister Richard Wynne assuming increasingly absolutist control of planning designation, multiple government agencies are still responsible for growth area planning and development, operating independent of each other.

Transport is separated from urban planning; urban planning responsibilities are divided between the Victorian Planning Authority (VPA) and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), along with Development Victoria and a number of other agencies; the transport department has established its own urban planning arm.

The VPA, charged with growth area planning, has no control over transport planning, no power to direct or coordinate investment, government or otherwise. It cannot introduce new planning controls, but must advocate for them to another department.

Professor Buxton says if Ballarat, already under immense pressure from population expansion, wants to avoid Melbourne's fate, then its councillors need to be aggressively responsive to the desires of the their electors, not developers and the state government.

The Courier spoke to Professor Buxton about the role of local government in wresting some control of planning back in the face of a state government that seems to be quite wedded to the idea of unbridled development.

"The state government sets the overall rules (for planning), and they're making life difficult for everybody, except for the development industry."

"RMIT did a study in Bendigo in 2016. We looked at the capacity for infill in Bendigo, and we touched on Ballarat, looking at the capacity for infill, and we developed up different housing types for different locations.

"We found there's an enormous amount of land capable of being redeveloped, even in smaller towns like Ballan and Kyneton. While Bendigo tried to adopt an urban growth boundary and encourage varied development within the township boundary, most councils adopt the view it's easier for developers to go and find land on the fringe and rezone it from a rural zoning to urban zoning.

"Then they roll out their standardised business model: the same type of house, covers 80 per cent of the block, totally energy inefficient, not oriented to the sunlight, no public transport and far - five, six kilometres sometimes - from services.

"That suits the development industry, because they don't have to plan; they just roll out the standardised business model. It's easy and councillors just fall into line and rezone the land - and so we have a perpetuation of this future disaster."

READ MORE:

Professor Buxton says councils need to put a lot more work into creative planning rather than rubberstamping applications as they arrive, if they truly want their cities to retain a sense of character and heritage.

He says there is plenty of land available in the township of Ballarat which could be rezoned and redeveloped with suitable housing models, if there was a willingness.

"There are old industrial estates; there's lots of other land that's underused or was used for different purposes, and is no longer needed for that," he says.

"There's lots of small infill which can be looked at. Council should identify the land within the township boundaries and match different housing styles and types to that land, and restrict the scale and breadth of outer urban development. Townships don't need to be replicating more of what's going on in Ballarat. It's just the wrong model.

"If people are living closer in the town, they're not going to need to rezone as much land on the fringe. But when they do, they need a different housing type, a variety of housing styles, more energy efficient and more liveable."

The careful reconsideration of industrial sites also plays into the preservation of Ballarat's heritage and unique identity, and again council needs to be more aggressive in protecting and promoting that.

"This kind of development is consistent with preservation of heritage," Professor Buxton says.

"There's absolutely no need to be pulling down existing buildings, demolishing the heritage that makes a town like Ballarat so beautiful, but also economically viable. If Ballarat continues to ignore the importance of heritage, it's going to become just another regional city.

"The government resists any kind of mandatory height controls, and any kind of strong regulation on development at all now. And it's gotten worse and worse as time goes by.

"We seem mesmerised by the Asian megacities, particularly China. They seem to dominate the Australian consciousness. Most of Europe doesn't do this. They have high-density, highly livable cities which manage to have a lot of people living there, close to public transport, in very liveable ways. Most of the world doesn't do this."

If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Courier, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ballarat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.