2015-06-29 General Committee Meeting Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                             29 JUNE 2015


Government Priority                                                                   Comment

Improving the operations of the Building and Development Dispute Resolution           Agreed it is preferable to have an ADR system and mediation to resolve matters
Committee                                                                             before they reach the court. However, this Committee is currently operated on a
                                                                                      very informal basis which raises concerns for good decision making. For some
                                                                                      matters where the site or the development may be highly controversial, each
                                                                                      party should have the option of referring it the Planning & Environment Court for
                                                                                      determination.

Fixing the problems that are blocking better performance and better development       Flexibility and innovation at a design level is supported however sometimes the
outcomes                                                                              problem is with performance based planning giving hope to a development
                                                                                      proposal which really should be prohibited. Prohibition provides clarity and
                                                                                      certainty and should reduce wasted efforts on a development proposal that does
                                                                                      not belong on that site.

Moving detail that is largely process or “planning 101” out of the Act, such as the   Sounds reasonable as long as there is consistency on imposition for State
prescriptive process for regional plans, operational specifics for Regional           planning as for local planning.
Planning Committees, and detailed planning scheme content including core
matters and key elements

Simplifying currency period arrangements                                              Agreed, existing currency period provisions are highly confusing and it is
                                                                                      preferred that the currency period be for a maximum number of years with the
                                                                                      ability to condition a lapsing date in the development approval. A lapsing date in
                                                                                      the approval would provide greater clarity for all parties.

Simplifying the “properly made” requirements to reduce the risk of technical non-     The mandatory requirements for lodgement have not significantly improved the
compliance at the point of lodgement                                                  quality of applications and have unnecessarily delayed assessment of
                                                                                      applications in some instances.

Retaining owner’s consent to be provided before any development approval is           Owners consent should be provided up front. Having a system that would allow
granted, although further consultation on requirements for state-owned land,          an application to be assessed prior to owner consent potentially wastes planning
servient tenement or acquisition land will specifically occur                         resources, raises community expectations and can place enormous pressure on
                                                                                      land owners.

Removing processes like the development assessment process to a statutory             Assuming they still have the same legal weight processes could possibly be
instrument and improving them for more practical processing and better                better expressed in a statutory instrument with more explanatory language and
navigability                                                                          illustrations. This relies on these draft instruments being available in full for
                                                                                      stakeholders to comment on before adoption or amendment.




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