Planning vs Planning Law: Reconciling Planning Policy and Case Law in the Victorian Planning System

This article examines the relationship between urban planning and legal professionals, and their competing perspectives on policy dilemmas. While much attention has been given to the relationship between expert and non-expert participants in planning and legal systems, less attention has been given to the relationship between planners and lawyers. However in contested legal and quasi-legal contexts such as planning appeal tribunals, planners become in some ways non-expert professionals, which can affect the achievement of planning policy objectives. The so-called “National Trust principle”, which relates to the breadth of valid planning considerations, is examined as a primary case study of this dynamic. The article argues that the intent of planners to widen the scope of considerations available in decision- making was compromised by a privileging of a case law-based discourse and the marginalisation of planning expertise and agency.