2015-01-15 Ordinary Meeting Minutes

ORDINARY MEETING MINUTES                                                      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
     Council Resolution
     Moved:          Cr Wellington
     Seconded:       Cr Wilkie
     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 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;
     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.


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