ABSTRACT: As State and Commonwealth government agencies are increasingly forced to treat parcels of public land as financial assets to be realized, our urban landscapes are losing significant public sites and infrastructure. Many sites are lost from public ownership without assessment of the significant nonfinancial values they may contain, such as their ecological, cultural, social, economic or potential value to the public. Disposal currently occurs in various ways – sometimes on the open market, but often through private negotiations prior to announcements of redundancy, sale and redevelopment. In many cases the public remains uninformed and uninvolved in both the disposal process and in the development of future options for the site. As a result the significant public values of such sites either remain unknown or are lost regardless as agencies rush to secure the deal.

The returns to government agencies from selling public land increase if rezoning and redevelopment for medium to high density development occurs. This neatly fulfills two current aims of government – urban consolidation and securing short-term windfall funds. However, the simultaneous loss of public land, services and infrastructure combined with the rapid increases in population (and subsequent increased demand for those public goods) which results places further pressure on remaining public space and services. It is argued that a more strategic approach to what should be kept in public ownership combined with a stock-take of what will be needed for future increases in population is necessary. Indeed, as custodian of both the planning system and our built heritage, governments are arguably obliged to examine longer-term considerations in their decision making with respect to public property.

This paper highlights the experience of some high profile case studies in Sydney to demonstrate regular intervention by government in the planning process in projects involving the disposal and redevelopment of public land – to ensure that such government backed proposals proceed quickly through the development approval process. Governments typically act as proponent, consultant and approval authority (especially where there is community opposition), and the public participation usually afforded by the planning process is reduced or bypassed. Such intervention is in stark contrast to the general retreat of government from service provision that accompanies neoliberalism, and which lies at the core of the issue of public asset sales.