1. A system that places the overall responsibility for deciding policies and applications in the hands of the elected representatives of the relevant Governments (State/Territory and local) with an independent court or tribunal based application appeal body;
2. A system that places the overall responsibility for deciding policies and applications in the hands of a technically based commission supported by local independent panels to assess and decide applications, and an independent technically based tribunal to review both policy and application decisions.
Please compare and contrast the models from the perspectives of the following:
a) Developers
b) The community
c) Planning practitioners
Both models are two extremities and in one or other way fails to boost the economy/system. the model must have 50-50 representation.
I would, in general, beware of giving too much power to unelected bureaucrats. Corruption is rife in this activity. Bureaucrats tend toward inflexibility. They generally hate performance standards and prefer prescriptive standards. Elected representatives tend toward raising donations for their next election campaign. They love to create problems that they can then fix.
These two extremes certainly come across the infamous debate of politics-administration dichotomy. The representation of both methodologies in a system is inevitable. However, the proportion of integration may depend on various social, political, economic and cultural factors within a particular context. Therefore, finding a delicate balance of two extreme is highly complicated and often contested.
But, if we could extract the main pillars of the bigger framework of the mix, it would be comprehensive to place a particular mix of politics and administration in a particular scenario. I would suggest to look at basic elements or variables such as bureaucratic autonomy vs political control. Based on this experience we may be able to shed light on more contextual, and specific variables of a broad matrix.
The two models are very extreme. In general and deepening the research you will find that there is always a mix. Overall, the main policies reflect political choices and the decisions based on them will always incorporate this (even if made by technicians). On the other side, the different public authorities will try to support their decisions based upon independent (technicians, academics,...) opinions and reports.
As the previous respondents have correctly indicated, this is a challenging question as either model could be effective and either model could be a disaster, depending on a range of factors. Either system requires other checks and balances to be in place if it is to avoid descending into corruption and disorder.
If the decisions are to be left with elected representatives, there need to be regulations enforcing transparency of campaign donations and a ban on donations from property developers (as applies in New South Wales, Australia). Good planning will be helped if there is a large, technically competent civil service that can moderate political influence. Poor planning and corruption can result if the public servants are overworked, lack professional status or are too small in numbers to act as a bulwaulk against undue interference from the elected members.
If the decisions are to be left with an unelected commission, good outcomes can be achieved if the members of the commission are broadly representative of the community, cover a range of sectors and disciplines, have no vested interest and are again supported by a technically competent corps of officers. Corruption can result if the members are mainly business people with vested interest or friends of the ruling government.
There is a parallel series of risks for the appeal body. Who appoints the members? If these are all pro-development, then the appeal process is just a method of bypassing good planning. Are the members of the appeal body only lawyers sitting in judgement on technical town planning matters, or are they a genuine expert tribunal? Developers with a financial interest in the outcome will always be able to outspend governments or community groups in taking cases to appeal. If the original planning authority, say a local government, is adequately funded to defend appeals, then an appeals tribunal can serve a useful balance against corrupt or incompetent behaviour by the council. But if the council does not fund itself adequately, it or the staff will waive through bad applications because there is no money to defend an appeal should one be lodged,.
So the answer to your question will depend upon a range of other tools for governance. No planning approval system stands in a vacuum.
You might want to consider a project that I have developed:
https://www.researchgate.net/project/Corruption-free-Planning
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