The local impacts of sex industry premises: Imagination, reality and implications for planning

This paper uses survey data to investigate the community impacts of relatively liberal planning regulation of sex industry premises that has been instituted in Sydney. In this, it explores the contested relationship between community attitudes to sex premises, planning controls over such premises, and real world impacts arising from the application of these controls. The paper first looks at how the range of planning impacts from sex industry premises that were perceived in the past have framed the construction of present planning controls to regulate the sex industry in two Sydney local government areas (one inner and one middle). Survey perceptions of a sample of current residents and commercial firms located close to sex industry premises about possible impacts, as well as perceptions of sex premises in general, are described. The scope of impacts and perceptions measured draws on a range of research from legal studies, property and planning studies, and sociology. The findings are set against the operative planning controls and the assumptions and desired outcomes inherent in them in order to evaluate the appropriateness of the controls. The paper concludes with suggestions for amendments to controls that more closely reflect community perceptions of actual sex industry impacts rather than perceptions of assumed impacts, and reflections on the nature of the intersection of community attitudes to sex premises, planning controls, and the ensuing level and type of actual community impacts.