Battling The Bureacrats... Round 21

It's on again... Chester Vs The Bureaucracy is a life or death struggle for common sense.

Here's the background... if you've been reading this blog for too long, then apart from needing to get out more, you'll know we have a little retail store. It was supposed to be a "pilot store", to test new products and concepts before we rolled the whole thing out across the country. Sadly, because we've been losing a battle with some loonie bureaucrats in the Federal Government, we don't have enough products so we've abandoned the whole "retail stores" idea.

Which leaves us with this space at a place in Sydney called "The Entertainment Quarter", a shopping mall attached to Fox Studios (which was supposed to have been a "Universal Studios" type theme park, but instead found itself being a real film studio). The problem is, the rules and regulations governing what we can and can't do there were written on the assumption that it was a theme park, and that makes this exercise a little "interesting".

We've been scratching for something else to do with the space, and because it's important to the story, I will tell you that what we're thinking about involves film, tv and entertainment. That's good, because those rules for development on the site, as set out in something they call a "Planning Instrument", dictate that anything we do, other than a restaurant or specialty retail, must be film, tv or entertainment related (or a theme park attraction, which we're not allowed to do because the local residents don't want roller coasters there).

So we're proposing a TV production company, of sorts, and we thought that would be ok because the Planning Instrument specifically says that's ok. Or so we thought...

First, we have to submit a "Development Application" to change from what we're doing to what we want to do. I can understand that the City want's to make sure that whatever we're doing is appropriate for the area. What I don't understand is why we need to hire an architect to create drawings that show them that we're going to pull out a non structural stud wall. One that we put in when we set the store up two years ago. One wall... 9m long.

We have to provide SIX sets of plans, together with SIX copies of something called a "Statement of Environmental Effects". The latter is now a 50 page tome, in which we've needed to dissect every bit of legislation pertaining to the site, and to what we've got in mind, proving that we're actually allowed to do what we're applying to do. Oh... I forgot to mention that along with all those trees, we're to provide the whole thing electronically, on CD-Rom. Why? Because they don't like storing all that tree extract (paper) in their archive.

50 pages. And growing, to apply to do something that's expressly and specifically allowed under legislation created just for that site. 50 pages. Of bullshit.

For example, we have to show that we have a "Conservation Strategy". Part of that is a statement of effect on Heritage or Historically Significant Property. Um. We're ripping out a Gyprock wall. It's two years old. What part of that is supposed to have historical significance?

In another section, we're expected to outline the strategies we're incorporating into our development that will help combat global warming. What? Um. It's a 72sqm shop. It's tiny. Even if I was in the "we evil humans did it" camp, which you know I'm not, the impact of whatever we're doing is so insignificant as to be utterly irrelevant.

Of course, there's one thing I've learned about bureaucrats... that that is that, by and large, they don't actually care about outcomes. They're only concerned about processes, so as long as they have a box to tick, we're ok, and that means I've written some very nice words about energy efficient light bulbs.

And because the site is actually owned by The Centennial Park Trust, another bureaucracy, we need to get the whole thing signed off by them first.

*sigh*

I think my head just exploded.