2020-02-11 Planning & Environment Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                  11 FEBRUARY 2020


 Appeal           Description of Matter                     Status
 Pelican Noosa    Appeal against Council’s decision to      This appeal is listed for further review on
 Pty Ltd          refuse an application to extend a Jetty   24 January 2020
                  180 Gympie Tce, Noosaville
 Serratore        Appeal against Enforcement Notice         No current direction orders made.
                  issued for clearing remnant vegetation    Council’s experts have completed their
                  without a development approval at 105     reports.
                  Illoura Place, Cooroibah

4.    Appeal Management
All Planning & Environment Court appeals are reported to Council on receipt and an initial
resolution sought from Council to defend the appeal. Prospects for the appeal and likely costs are
not known at this stage until an initial review is undertaken by Council’s Planning Solicitor, though
it is often difficult to determine prospects until joint expert reports have been prepared.
While the Manager Development Assessment generally manages Council’s appeals and provides
instructions to Council’s Planning Solicitor, all appeals are regularly reviewed by Council’s Case
Management Working Group. This group includes the Mayor, Chair of the Planning & Environment
Committee, Chief Executive Officer, Director Environment & Sustainable Development, Director
Corporate Services, Manager Development Assessment and Council’s Planning Solicitor. At each
meeting appeal costs are monitored, an update on appeal progress is made by Council’s Planning
Solicitor and discussion is had on appeal strategy such as prioritising certain appeals, request for
appeal prospects etc. No decisions are made by the Case Management Working Group, with all
matters requiring a decision reported to a Council meeting.
At the conclusion of each appeal, appeal judgements and any learnings are shared with Council’s
Development Assessment and Strategic Planning teams to help inform assessment of
development applications in the future and possible Planning Scheme amendments.

5.    Planning & Environment Court
The Planning & Environment Court Act 2016 provides for each party to a proceeding to pay its own
costs, except in limited circumstances. This has meant that parties are able to take matters to the
Planning & Environment Court when they are not happy with an outcome but this has also meant
there are no real consequences for parties which have little prospect and often very high costs for
councils in defending planning schemes on behalf of their community.
While amendments to the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 (SPA) in 2012 gave the Planning &
Environment Court a wide discretion to award costs against a party to a proceeding, this SPA cost
regime was widely criticised and resulted in the Planning & Environment Court making cost orders
against parties in numerous decisions. Parties, particularly residents, who wished to raise genuine
issues in the public interest were highly discouraged and appeals became prohibitive for many.
Queensland’s Planning & Environment Court has long been regarded as a dynamic, specialist
court allowing public, accountable and transparent access to justice. The Planning & Environment
Court has, over the years, developed a rich jurisprudence in a highly technical, niche area of the
law. As there are specialist judges sitting in the jurisdiction, there has been a degree of consistency
between decisions on similar facts and circumstances and consequently perhaps a lot more rigour
than occurs in other Australian state planning appeal systems.
The approach to case management by the Planning & Environment Court has assisted in ensuring
efficiency in the process and reducing the costs of a lengthy trial. The increasing role of alternative
dispute resolution in the Planning & Environment Court has also seen the resolution of many
appeals thereby saving Court time and the parties costs for those that did not previously use
‘without prejudice’ meetings to try and resolve matters.




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