2015-10-13 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                  13 OCTOBER 2015



Council’s Previous Submission                           Comment

I. The maximum infrastructure charges prescribed        Has not been addressed.
by legislation remain unchanged since being
introduced in 2011. Infrastructure charges have
dropped in real terms due to indexation not being
applied. This prohibits councils from making
charges that reflect the actual current costs of
building infrastructure. Thus the proportional costs
of public infrastructure related to new development
are being met by the community. Meanwhile the
State Government adds 3.5% annual indexation to
its own fees and charges. Noosa Council thus
requests that annual automatic indexation of the
current maximum capped charges be introduced to
reflect increasing costs of providing infrastructure.


Previous Council Consideration
Council first considered the proposed Planning & Development Bill and Planning &
Environment Court Bill 2014 in September 2014 (prior to them being introduced to
Parliament) and requested the Chief Executive Officer make a submission to the draft Bills.
Then, at its meeting of 15 January 2015 Council considered a report on Queensland
planning reform including the Planning and Development Bill.
Ordinary Meeting 15 January, 2015, Item 1, Page 3
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;



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