2015-01-12 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                               12 January 2015


As previously advised in the report to Council in September there are some substantial changes
to the development assessment system, but also a great many aspects that are similar. The
following flow chart outlines the proposed development assessment process generally:-




Some of the key features and differences with the proposed process include the following:

Pre-lodgement Meeting Role
The role of pre-lodgement meetings is recognised in the proposed statutory document,
encouraging informed discussions about a development proposal with referral agencies (i.e. state
government agency such as the Department of Transport and Main Roads) and the assessment
manager (i.e. in most instances Council). It provides that referral agencies may provide a pre-
referral response prior to an application being lodged with the assessment manager similar to the
Sustainable Planning Act 2009 provisions.
However, under the proposed DA Rules the applicant can choose to opt-out of the further
information step if the application has undertaken a pre-lodgement with the assessment manager
and obtained all required pre-referral responses. The option for an applicant to not provide the
additional information requested was already provided for under SPA and this change perhaps
negates the requirement for assessment manager to compile a detailed information request.

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