2015-10-13 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                  13 OCTOBER 2015


           and
(d)        considering housing choice and diversity,
           and economic diversity; and
(e)        considering supplying infrastructure in a
           coordinated, efficient and orderly way; and
(f)        considering amenity, conservation, energy
           use, health and safety in the built
           environment in ways that are cost-effective
           and of public benefit;
(g)        considering ways of minimising the adverse
           environmental effects of development (like
           climate change, urban congestion and
           declining human health).

Compensation Arrangements                                It is agreed that compensation provisions
                                                         should be removed where planning schemes
Under the draft Bill, compensation to land owners        are made or amended to manage risks
due to changes in planning schemes relating to           associated with natural hazards, including
reducing risks to persons or property form natural       flood, bushfire, landslide, storm tide
events would not be payable. However, such               inundation and coastal erosion. The new
changes would require Council’s to first prepare a       legislation should make it clear that
report assessing the matter including feasible           compensation rights should only be preserved
alternatives for reducing the risk.                      where an applicant can prove they have
                                                         suffered an immediate and demonstrable loss
An alternative approach is one similar to the current    relating to the continuing use of land for
arrangement under the Sustainable Planning Act           existing lawful purposes and not the
2009 where Council’s are open to compensation for        speculative possibility of future development
all changes to planning scheme which reduces the         for some other purpose. The superseded
value of interest in land. Under the current             planning scheme provisions are considered
arrangements Council’s either agree to pay               adequate for proponents to act on a
compensation or seek to reduce the risk through          development proposal in accordance with the
conditions imposed on future development                 planning scheme that was in affect prior to the
approvals.                                               change. Thus it is considered onerous to
                                                         require councils to prepare risk assessment
                                                         reports that assess feasibility alternatives for
                                                         reducing risk as part of imposing conditions on
                                                         development approvals.

                                                         Ideally, the planning scheme should deal with
                                                         natural hazard risks upfront at the planning
                                                         stage and it should then be for the applicant to
                                                         demonstrate how the natural hazard risks can
                                                         be appropriately managed as part of the
                                                         development application in accordance with
                                                         the scheme provisions.

Terms Used for Classifying Development                   There is no perceived value in changing the
                                                         names of assessment categories from code
There are currently two categories proposed for          and impact to standard and merit. There is no
assessable development (development for which a          legal obligation to change the name of the
development approval is required) including:-            categories just because the new legislation
                                                         treats and defines the categories somewhat
         Standard/Code                                 differently. The practical intent of the
         Merit/Impact                                  categories remains largely unchanged and
                                                         therefore the names should remain
Feedback is sought on the names of assessment            unchanged. This would avoid unnecessary
categories that should be used (i.e. either Standard     effort and expense that would arise to correct
or Code)                                                 planning scheme and supporting DA
                                                         information.




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