The Battle for the Big Backyard, the name of Stokes' 2007 thesis, captures the tension at the heart of NSW planning policy.

Should Sydney residents continue to expect to live in detached houses with leafy yards? Or do we need fewer quarter acres and more apartment blocks to accommodate our growing population?

As Planning Minister, Mr Stokes is now in a position to preside over that battle. But the environmental lawyer, who is now topping up his PhD with a coursework Masters from Oxford, is taking a novel tack.

He is introducing laws that concentrate power to determine the shape of that battle. But he's removing himself, in theory, from the exercise of that power.

Stokes' PhD, a decent read if you're wandering about near Macquarie University Library, is a heavily theoretical account of attempts to mediate between suburban character (houses and backyards) and consolidation (unit blocks and density).

As part of the thesis, Stokes explores how well a third dynamic – public participation in planning processes – has been able to shape that conflict. Not very well, Stokes concludes.

"Public participation in NSW planning law is almost entirely controlled by the executive arm of state government and the officials who promote urban consolidation as the legitimate expression of the public interest," he wrote.

Which provides an interesting context to changes Stokes is introducing to the NSW planning system. Last month Stokes introduced laws to establish the Greater Sydney Commission, an agency to guide the direction of planning in the city.

Lawyers, property developers, environmentalists and planning experts have spent the past few weeks parsing the scope of the Commission Bill.

The consensus seems to be that this new authority will carry serious clout. In essence, it will determine what gets built and where. As one example of the expected power of the Commission, it has already been handed authority for control Sydney's prime residential assets - the former responsibility of the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority.

The commission will have a chairperson (likely to be Lucy Turnbull, the former lord mayor of Sydney and the current Prime Minister's wife), as well as environment, economic and social commissioners. There will be six district commissioners, nominated by councils, but appointed by the minister. The commission will be in charge of drawing up plans that councils would be required to comply with.

In his PhD, Stokes proposed giving councils more power to create plans with less interference from the minister.

"Enabling local councils to make their own LEPs [Local Environment Plans] would … promote democratic, transparent and accountable policy making," he wrote. In government, Stokes is relieving councils of the obligation to create plans with approval of the minister, but requiring them to do so in concert with the new agency.

A map showing the district names for the Greater Sydney Council. 

For John Mant​, a doyen of Australian planning and a current ally of Clover Moore on City of Sydney Council, Stokes is doing what planners have always tended to want to do: give power to other planners.

"Planning is essentially Platonic philosophy in practice," says Mant. "Plato said the world should be run by philosopher kings, these special people who through training had the right to direct the community, because only they understood what was 'Good'. And that's what planners are like: 'We've done a five-year course at the University of NSW so we know what's good, and you don't.'"

Mant is sympathetic to Stokes' objectives and, like most who know him, is sympathetic to Stokes. "He will do the right thing, he's a very good person, and a bright person," Mant says.

"But I'm old enough and been through the wars enough to understand the traps and the reasons why it may not work," Mant says.

One of the reasons it may not work, Mant says, is the same reason planning ministers have wanted to accrue powers to themselves, not spread them to independent bodies. And that is because the really important decisions in NSW are made around the Cabinet and budget table. The commission's very independence may weaken its influence at budget time.

Amelia Thorpe, who teaches planning, property and environmental law at the University of NSW, is another who notes the commission is vesting huge power in what is essentially an undemocratic panel.

"It's great that we've got a minister who knows so much about planning, who is really genuinely trying to balance social and environmental and economic interests," Thorpe says.

But Thorpe is puzzled as to why Stokes has handed the power to create plans that would reshape Sydney to an unelected body.

"I think having technocratic bodies making decisions about particular projects is less of an issue," she says. "Assuming you've got strategic plans, then if you just assess the project against the plan there's less of a concern there. But actually making the plans, that's a totally political choice, and I don't understand why you would be putting that to a body that's not political," she says.

Chris Johnson, from the developer lobby the Urban Taskforce, agrees this is the effect of the legislation: "In essence it is taking a lot of politics out of the future planning of Sydney, and putting it into the hands of this independent commission."

For Stokes and his political colleagues, there are obvious risks here, particularly if communities get the sense they are not being listened to.

"The progressive erosion of effective democratic institutions in planning by state governments is likely to increase the political potency of planning as an election issue at a state government level," Stokes wrote in 2007.

What if, for instance, the commission proposed much higher development along Sydney's leafy north shore rail line? What if the commission proposed housing on Currawong Beach in Stokes' electorate of Pittwater? Would he intervene and risk jeopardising the independence of the Commission?

Asked about the level of community participation in what the commission does, Stokes says there are aspects of the legislation that address this and foreshadows further reforms to come.

He says a new Sydney Planning Panel – to take the place of two joint regional planning panels – will shift more power to councils in approving developments. And he says the community will also be able to help shape significant plans for the city. "It has never been possible before to be involved in the creation of district plans that have an impact on your local plans," Stokes says.

"There are some more avenues for participation than there were and there is the capacity in future for that participation to get greater over time as well," he says.

"We are trying to go back to a more inclusive way when people thought about 'where do we have new suburbs, and how do we join them with walkways or bike paths or whatever it might be'," Stokes says.

But those future avenues for participation have not been spelled out. And as the 2007 warning of Robert Gordon Stokes pointed out, getting these participation mechanisms right is likely to be pretty important.

"Using meaningless participation as a facade to cover over disagreement merely clogs up conflict, creating a dam of resentment, which spills over in the form of increasing litigation, loss of trust in politicians and administrators, and poor planning outcomes," Stokes wrote back then.