2015-01-12 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                    12 January 2015


not lapse if the applicant fails to respond to the assessment manager’s information request as is
currently provided for in SPA and instead the Decision Stage simply starts.
The ability to revive an application is extraordinary when the development application process is
intended to be an applicant driven process as applicants should be responsible for meeting their
own time frames, as is Council. The proposed extension to the revival period is likely to create
administrative problems for councils in their application tracking systems, financials in refunding
application fees in part and has the potential to create significant confusion for the community
and particularly submitters.
Notably, the requirement for assessment managers to give applicant and owners of land notice of
a pending lapsing of development approval has been removed from the Bill.
Shortened Decision Time frames
Assessment managers will have 20 business days to assess and decide a development
application requiring standard assessment and 30 business days for merit assessment, with the
Decision Notice to be also given within this period. These periods may be extended only by
agreement with the applicant. This is a significant reduction to the time frames provided for under
SPA, whereby both code and impact assessable applications must be decided within 20
business days, which may be extended by a further 20 business days by the assessment
manager and further by agreement with the applicant. SPA also provided a separate 5 business
days for the Decision Notice to be issued.
For development applications following the standard assessment process and not decided within
the specified 20 business days the applicant may give the assessment manager a deemed
approval notice. The assessment manager has then 10 business days to give a decision notice
and include any relevant conditions.
Referral Agencies to a development application have been only given 20 business days to make
an information request and provide the referral agency response. Again shortened time frames
are proposed in the P&D Bill compared with SPA.
A 20 business day time frame has been applied for the assessment manager to consider written
representations from the applicant and give a negotiated decision notice. Notably, the applicant
may stop the negotiated decision period for up to 6 months.
The majority of development applications are currently decided within the first 20 business days
of the decision period. Applications decided in 20 business days plus include generally those
that are reported to a Council meeting for consideration or where negotiation has occurred with
the applicant during the decision period for revised plans or additional information etc. The
proposed time frames will mean a review is necessary of our current practice of requesting
revised plans or making a ‘second informal information request’ during the decision period. A
review of the delegations would also be prudent particularly for the standard assessable
development applications.
Notably, the decision rules have been amended since the last report to Council in September.
The decision rules have now been moved to the Planning and Development Regulations, and
currently identify that applications must be assessed against the assessment benchmarks (i.e.
the planning scheme) and matters set out in identified Schedules. However, these schedules are
‘blank’ currently and give no confidence that applicants for development proposals which conflict
with the planning scheme must prove the merits and justify the inconsistency as currently
required under SPA.
Alternative/chosen Assessment Managers

The Bill retains and amends 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 not confirmed whether this will result in an additional class
of private entities (chosen by the Minister rather than councils) being identified as assessment
managers in place of councils for particular applications.

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