Town Planning Report_FINAL

Section 43 of the Planning Act 2016 outlines the matters to be included in a categorising instrument
(such as a planning scheme) and the matters that are not considered to be an assessment benchmark.
It provides:

         43 Categorising instruments
         (1) A categorising instrument is a regulation or local categorising instrument that does any or all
         of the following—
                  (a) categorises development as prohibited, assessable or accepted development;
                  (b) specifies the categories of assessment required for different types of assessable
                  development;
                  (c) sets out the matters (the assessment benchmarks) that an assessment manager must
                  assess assessable development against.
         (2) An assessment benchmark does not include—
                  (a) a matter of a person’s opinion; or
                  (b) a person’s circumstances, financial or otherwise; or
                  (c) for code assessment—a strategic outcome under section 16(1)(a); or
                  (d) a matter prescribed by regulation.

                   Examples of assessment benchmarks—
                   a code, a standard, or an expression of the intent for a zone or precinct



Following on, section 60 of the Planning Act 2016 outlines the criteria for deciding a development
application, which states:

        60 Deciding development applications
         (1) This section applies to a properly made application, other than a part of a development
         application that is a variation request.
         (2) To the extent the application involves development that requires code assessment, and
         subject to section 62, the assessment manager, after carrying out the assessment—
                (a) must decide to approve the application to the extent the development complies with
                all of the assessment benchmarks for the development; and
                (b) may decide to approve the application even if the development does not comply with
                some of the assessment benchmarks; and


                  (c) may impose development conditions on an approval; and
                  (d) may, to the extent the development does not comply with some or all the assessment
                  benchmarks, decide to refuse the application only if compliance can not be achieved by
                  imposing development conditions.



The application is required to be assessed against the relevant assessment benchmarks (Codes) as
outlined in Part 5 of the Noosa Plan, which are addressed in section 1.5 of this report.




PLANNING REPORT – Revision A                       May 2023                                      P a g e | 31