Urban development and land contamination: incremental pressures and policy gaps

Urban soil contamination presents a threefold risk to the community and government. One, residue pollution from former industrial and transport activities contributes to contamination that can have adverse human and environmental health outcomes. Two, current land use policy is primarily directed towards contemporary sites or activities having known or likely contamination risk and not incremental build-up of contaminants from diffuse sources. Three, as more is known on the impact of specific contaminants on human health and the environment, maximum permitted limits are reducing thereby increasing the number of people exposed to low level contaminants. The intersection of these factors brings to light some of the shortcomings of current policy and practice. For urban planners tasked to support residential consolidation and gentrification of former industrial inner suburbs, managing both the known and unknown risks is a significant and unresolved planning and environmental issue. This paper examines the current policy and practices of land contamination at a state and local government level. It draws on the historical land use and recent soil contamination sampling from discrete locations across the Marrickville local government area, an inner-wester region of metropolitan Sydney. The paper concludes with recommendations for planners and environmental regulators on how to incorporate contamination risk into strategic and statutory land use decisions.