2015-10-13 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                          13 OCTOBER 2015


   Assessment benchmarks being new terminology for matters that a development will be
     assessed against such as planning scheme code.
   Categorising instrument being new terminology for regulations and planning schemes
     which identify the development category such as accepted, assessable or prohibited
     and include a Regulation or a Planning Scheme.
Further, the draft Planning Bill proposes the introduction of three categories of assessment:
1.     Accepted: includes all developments other than assessable or prohibited
       developments. The accepted category is effectively a combination of the exempt and
       self-assessable categories under the Sustainable Planning Act 2009.
2.     Assessable: applies to developments which can only be carried out with a
       development approval. Additionally, subject to the feedback in the public submission
       period, the code/impact assessment categories may be changed to standard/merit
       assessment.
3.     Prohibited: is a development where no application can be made.
The time frames throughout the proposed development assessment process have been
generally moved to the Development Assessment Rules and are reduced, with the exception
of public notification including:
   The assessment manager will have 20 business days to assess a code assessable
     application and give the decision notice and 30 business days for an impact
     assessable application.
   Change to the decision time frame for extension applications from 30 business days to
     20 business days to decide the application, with an additional 5 days to provide the
     decision notice to the relevant parties.
   A public notification period of at least 30 business days for development applications
     that seek to vary a planning scheme and at least 15 business days for all other
     development applications that require public notification.
Notably the current draft Regulation proposes the standard requirements for giving public
notice to include giving notice to adjoining owners of land, placing notice on the land, giving
notice to the Council who must keep a register of all development applications requiring
public notification.

Longer Currency Periods but No More ‘Roll Forward’
The currency periods for development approvals are proposed to be extended:
   Material Change of Use Development Approval: is extended from four to six years.
    Reconfiguring a Lot Development Approval (without works): is extended from two to
      four years.
Together with these changes it is also proposed to remove the rolling currency period
provisions for related approvals where the relevant period would have been taken to have
started on the last day the latest related approval took effect. The removal of the ‘roll
forward’ provisions is an improvement on the current SPA provisions which could in theory
enable a development approval to remain current for 20 years and are overly complex in
tracking and advising on the lapsing date of an approval.

Removal of the term 'permissible change' and amendment to minor change test
Under the Draft Bills the term 'minor change' now applies to both changes to development
applications and development approvals. However the term takes on a slightly different
meaning depending on the circumstances. The Draft Bills also provide scope for approvals
to be changed if the change is not minor.


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