2015-01-15 Ordinary Meeting Agenda

ORDINARY MEETING AGENDA                                                        15 JANUARY 2015


5    CONSIDERATION OF COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS

GENERAL COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
12 JANUARY 2015 - Crs Tony Wellington (Chair), Bob Abbot, Sandy Bolton, Joe Jurisevic,
Frank Pardon, Frank Wilkie and Noel Playford

1    QUEENSLAND PLANNING REFORM INCLUDING PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
     BILL
     That Council note the report by the Principal Strategic Planner and the Manager, Planning
     & Environment to the General Committee dated 12 January 2015 and request the Chief
     Executive Officer to make a submission to the Parliamentary Committee Dept of State
     Development, Infrastructure and Planning regarding the following points:
     A.     The Planning & Development Bill and Planning & Development Regulations are not
            clear in the decision rules, particularly for those applications which conflict with the
            planning scheme. It is considered that where an application conflicts with the
            planning scheme, the onus of proof should be on the applicant to prove the merits
            of the proposal and justify any inconsistencies;
     B.     The Planning & Development Bill includes a clause that allows a regulation to
            prescribe the assessment manager for a development application as any person
            from a class of persons who have stated qualifications or characteristics. It is
            unclear whether this will result in an additional class of private entities (chosen by
            the Minister) being identified as assessment managers in place of councils for
            particular applications.    This is of significant concern as experience has
            demonstrated that private building certification has not always been successful in
            implementing planning scheme requirements. This is particularly important for any
            operational works applications that include works which are to become a public
            asset and be maintained at ratepayers expense;
     C.     The Planning & Environment Court Bill maintains the specific criteria for making a
            costs order introduced with the Sustainable Planning and other Legislation
            Amendment Bill 2012. These rules do not serve the public interest of enabling the
            community, submitters, local governments and developers to dispute planning
            decisions due to the risk and uncertainty of the Court awarding costs against them.
            The previous Court powers to award costs in circumstances where cases were
            frivolous or vexatious or instituted primarily to delay or obstruct are considered
            sufficient protections from abuse of the system;
     D.     The definition of material change of use should not be limited to only increases in
            scale and density of the premises, as there are circumstances where reducing the
            scale of the development does materially change the site’s use. This is particularly
            relevant for developments which include an important community use or the like.
            For example removing the nursing home component from a retirement village may
            have a significant social impact on an area; and
     E.     The Planning & Development Bill maintains and extends the time frame for
            applicants to be able revive a development application where it lapses. This ability
            is not consistent with the principles for the DA Rules of being an applicant driven
            process, and is likely to create administrative problems for Councils and lead to
            significant confusion for the community, particularly submitters.
     F.     As Noosa Council values community engagement in its planning and development
            decisions, we have concerns regarding changes that may serve to inhibit, obstruct
            or minimise resident input. Reductions in public notification periods and removal of
            existing requirements for notices to be placed in local newspapers are thus not
            supported and there should be a minimum notification period for applications of 20
            business days. We also have concerns about the proposal that an applicant may

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