ABSTRACT
The fact that public sector planners have an important part to play in the property development process is generally accepted in developed societies, but the questions exactly what their role should be and how much power planners should have give rise to a wide range of differing answers. Indeed, if one considers the planning systems and powers provided by legislation in different countries, one sees different approaches to these two particular aspects of planning control. So, for example, there has for some considerable time been far more attention paid in the United Kingdom to detailed aspects of development control (although in recent years there has been some relaxation of this aspect of planning), than in Australia where in New South Wales, for instance, there has been a system of control in force which has placed less emphasis on development control at a detailed design level. Even though the New South Wales system is based in many respects on the British system, it has in general allowed individual developers much more freedom with respect to the detailed design aspects of development than has the British system, notwithstanding the fact that both systems have similar broad objectives.
