2016-12-15 Ordinary Meeting Agenda

ORDINARY MEETING AGENDA                                                      15 DECEMBER 2016


5   DRAFT DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT RULES FOR NEW PLANNING ACT
    That Council note the report by the Manager, Planning & Environment to the General
    Committee Meeting dated 12 December 2016 and request the Chief Executive Officer
    make a submission to the State government on the draft Development Assessment Rules
    for the Planning Act 2016 seeking that:
    1.   The assessment time frames of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 be maintained.
         The time frames are proposed to be generally halved under the proposed
         Development Assessment Rules and have the potential to significantly impact on
         Council resources and achieving good planning outcomes for Noosa. The proposed
         shortened time frames will not allow time to undertake a thorough assessment of
         development proposals and consult appropriately with the community without
         additional resources to Council’s Development Assessment team. Additional
         resources would need to be funded by raising fees and charges for development
         applications, increasing costs for developers.
    2.   The Development Assessment Rules maintain and extend the time frame for
         applicants to be able to revive a development application where it lapses. This ability
         is not consistent with the identified intention for the development process to be ‘an
         applicant driven process’, and is likely to create administrative problems for councils
         and lead to significant confusion for the community, particularly submitters.
    3.   The opt-out step for information requests be deleted from the Development
         Assessment Rules. The ability to opt-out of an information request in the
         Development Assessment Rules is likely to add significant complexity to the
         development assessment process without adding value as an applicant currently has
         multiple options in regard to giving a response to a request for further information. It
         is critical that councils and state agencies retain the ability to raise issues and identify
         further information that is required in order to fully understand and assess
         development proposals.
    4.   Applicants be responsible for notifying all relevant entities of a change to the
         development application given the identified intention for the development process to
         be ‘an applicant driven process. S25.1 of the proposed Development Assessment
         Rules requires Councils to give a copy of a notice of change to a development
         application to the relevant referral agencies and advise on the effect of the change on
         the development process.’
    5.   Applicants be required to give notice of commencement of the public notification
         period to assessment managers, given Council is responsible for ensuring that
         application material is available for the community to review and determine whether
         submissions are properly made S17.4 of the proposed Development Assessment
         Rules states that ‘the applicant may give notice to the assessment manager of the
         intended start date of public notification’ and does not make this step mandatory.

6   ENDORSEMENT OF BIODIVERSITY ASSESSMENT REPORT
    That Council note the report by the Principal Strategic Planner to the General Committee
    Meeting dated 12 December 2016, and:
    A.   Endorse the Biodiversity Assessment Report provided at Attachment 1 for the
         purpose of informing the development of an Environment Strategy and supporting
         Biodiversity Conservation Plan other than for the following issues:; and
         1.    Note that this is not the only substantial area of coastal mainland remnant
               vegetation between Byron Bay (300 km south in northern NSW) and
               Bundaberg (250 km to the north) as referred to on page 17, item 2.1, paragraph
               2; and


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