The Cittalsow ‘Statutes’

Cittaslow is about keeping Bright small, slow & grungy

“A Cittaslow town is a town which …”

… abides by these Statutes set down in Italy !

Over the past few weeks I’ve made a lot of ‘No Cittaslow for Bright’ posts. I also put a letter in the Bright Observer along the same lines. I’m trying to provide as much information as I can and I’m confident that I’ve given people more of an insight into Cittaslow – and what it is really about - than those who are pushing it.

I’ve mentioned the charter (or ‘manifesto’) that the Alpine Council would be required to agree to if it ever officially applied to Italy for the town of Bright to be declared a Cittaslow, i.e. a ’slow town’ that is governed by Cittaslow ‘principles’. As I’ve explained before, the charter includes ’statutes’ pertaining to development that would, in my opinion, have a bearing on planning applications in Bright.

Here are the Statutes. I’ve circled the two that go directly to development & planning issues and my further comments appear at the foot: 

Comment:

It’s worth examining the two statutes and what their implications might be. Firstly though, I should explain that the above document is from Cittaslow UK and is a shortened version of the full 30-page charter drawn up in Italy. However, the two development statutes are also included in the central Italian document that the Alpine council would have to agree to. In fact Cittaslow’s ‘rules’ are uniform and mandatory worldwide, and there are no variations permitted.

Emphasing this are these two articles from the full 30-page Cittaslow charter:

Art. 8 Joining: On the joining application the candidate member must declare to accept the Association Charter without reservations.

Art. 12 Compliance with the regulations: Members are expected to comply with the regulations of the present Charter and deliberations by the Assembly and International Coordination Committee of the Cittaslow Association; noncompliance can result, in serious cases and upon justified deliberation, in the exclusion of the member. The exclusion may be decided even for a documented activity openly contrary to the Association principles.

The charter is actually a legal document that binds the council to strictly adhere to ‘the rules’ or face expulsion from Cittaslow. By signing up to this, the council would clearly be adopting the charter as an over-arching policy for the town of Bright. The two statutes pertaining to development would effectively become planning policies that build on the existing planning scheme and would have to be considered, in much the same way that the Bright Future document, another adopted policy of council, also impacts on planning decisions. 

And you don’t have to look very far to confirm this. In the recent VCAT hearing on the Coles supermarket the Save Bright group argued that the Bright Future document should be taken into account, even though it was not drafted into the planning scheme. VCAT agreed with that as follows:

During the course of the hearing we were referred to a document titled “Bright Future: Urban Design Framework” … The Bright Future document does not form part of the planning scheme but it has been adopted by the Council and in accordance with Section 60 (1A) (g) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 it is a document we may consider if the circumstances appear to so require.

In our view the Bright Future document should be regarded as an adopted Council policy which builds on those policies and strategies contained in the planning scheme which we have outlined above, and provides more detailed guidance for the development of the activity centre than that contained in the planning scheme.

Fortunately though, VCAT determined that the proposed development was not inconsistent with Bright Future and allowed it go ahead. How they would view the Cittaslow policies though is anyone’s guess. We would be getting into new territory with that because VCAT has not yet had to decide on any case appealed on Cittaslow grounds, as no other town in Victoria has joined it and the two interstate towns that have are still fairly new members. There are no ‘test cases’ or ‘precedents’ for VCAT to go by so they would have to consider each and every Bright ‘Cittaslow’ appeal on its merits.

And you can be sure that our ‘core group’ of anti-development objectors WOULD use the Cittaslow statutes as grounds of appeal against a whole host of planning decisions, even residential ones, as the statute clearly applies to the entire town. The appellants’ barristers would have a field day putting different interpretations & meanings to the Cittaslow policies and Bright would become the testing ground or ‘guinea pig’ for Cittaslow in Victoria.

Even if no such Cittaslow appeals were successful they would still impact greatly on the time and costs involved in the planning process. Council’s costs would soar and developers & investors might decide they’d rather not be put through the Cittaslow ‘wringer’ in addition to all the other planning policies & hoops they need to jump through. They’d just go elsewhere and Bright would miss out on valuable new investments and businesses. Our economy would suffer. 

And who is to say that VCAT would not reject developments on Cittaslow grounds that would otherwise be approved? On the surface the two statutes seem to be much along the same lines as the existing planning scheme provisions, however, there are differences. The planning scheme is a broad-based document and in fact relies on interpretations being made using adopted policies as a guide on matters such as type & scale of buildings and even such things as colours & materials used. Looking at the two charters there are definite guidelines that would be wide open for interpretation:

A Cittaslow town is a town in which:

a policy is in place to help maintain and develop the distinctiveness and characteristics of the surrounding area and the fabric of life in the town; regeneration and re-use are priorities, rather than modernisation and redevelopment for the sake of change

a policy on the built environment encourages enhancement of the area rather than development
that is insensitive to history, tradition and the needs of people 

The first statute goes directly to the proposed redevelopment of existing buildings and clearly advocates that recycled materials be used, not modern ones. But who decides what our “distinctiveness & characteristics” are? Would that be determined by the new Cittaslow committee set up to implement Cittaslow principles, which is a requirement of the agreement? I would think so. So what we’ll have is a list of building materials, design principles and other controls like external colours … all determined by a narrow interest group.

Can you imagine the tediousness of such a process and the minefield it would open up on even basic redevelopment jobs like rendering the outside of your building, be it a shop or your home? Property owners may need planning permits to carry out works that previously required no such approvals. This would add substantially to the time taken and the costs incurred and would act as a deterrent to renewal projects.

You see, Cittaslow just wants everything to stay old and original, no matter how crappy it is.

The second statute goes directly to new buildings and talks about them complying with our “history & tradition” and something vaguely called “the needs of people”. But again, who determines what our history & traditions are, and how is that interpreted into the built form? Would it mean, for instance, that contemporary style architecture is out, seeing as though we don’t have any “history” of that? Would the ‘preferred’ building designs be re-creations of older style shops? I think so – and nothing looks worse than that. 

The fact is we have very few historical buildings and our main “history & tradition” (in the commercial centre at least) is pretty basic, so anything that looks new and modern could easily be said to be “insensitive” to our traditional shops. That’s what Save Bright tried to argue at VCAT about Coles; I bet they wish they had Cittaslow then! 

And what are “the needs of people”? Save Bright tried to say we didn’t “need” a new supermarket, which is not a relevant argument under the present scheme. But would those so-called “needs” become relevant once Cittaslow is adopted? You can be sure the objectors would say so. Just imagine the objections that would be made to a new and larger hardware store on the grounds it wasn’t “needed by the people” because we already had one. It would certainly happen because Cittaslow aims to slow down the pace of change and keep new competitors out.

Of course, Cittaslow development statutes would not over-ride existing planning laws but nonetheless would clearly become permanently attached to the planning process and open up a real ‘can of worms’, the outcomes of which can only be detrimental to Bright’s economic growth and prosperity.

And we don’t “need” another policy – formulated and vetted in Italy - on top of all the other processes we presently have. The fact is our existing planning scheme IS working and providing sound outcomes. We also have a very competent administration headed by CEO Ian Nicholls and I’m sure that the new Town Framework Plan, as recently outlined by the senior Strategic Services Manager, John Carter, will more than adequately address any other concerns that exist.

Contrary to what the Chamber of Commerce might say, Cittaslow is not about “diversity” and it’s not about “slow food” – it’s about keeping the town small, slow … and grungy. Please reject it.