2015-10-13 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                   13 OCTOBER 2015


3.    Council’s Previous Submission

The table below details whether the current Bills have addressed the issues previously
raised in Council’s submission.

Council’s Previous Submission                            Comment

A. The Planning & Development Bill and Planning          The draft Bill has not carried forward the
& Development Regulations are not clear in the           existing statutory rules of SPA that preclude
decision rules, particularly for those applications      approval of a development application where it
which conflict with the planning scheme. It is           would conflict with a relevant State or Local
considered that where an application conflicts with      Planning Instrument, in the absence of
the planning scheme, the onus of proof should be         sufficient grounds. There is no requirement to
on the applicant to prove the merits of the proposal     articulate the reasons an application is
and justify any inconsistencies;                         approved contrary to planning scheme
                                                         provisions.

B. The Planning & Development Bill includes a            The draft Bill has been amended to allow the
clause that allows a regulation to prescribe the         use of alternate assessment managers to be
assessment manager for a development                     solely at a local government’s discretion. This
application as any person from a class of persons        is important to ensure that the new planning
who have stated qualifications or characteristics. It    legislative framework continues to empower
is unclear whether this will result in an additional     local government as the responsible entity
class of private entities (chosen by the Minister)       immediately responsible for integrated land use
being identified as assessment managers in place         planning, management and development
of councils for particular applications. This is of      assessment.
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                 The draft Bill has been amended to return to
maintains the specific criteria for making a costs       the former costs provisions of SPA, with parties
order introduced with the Sustainable Planning and       only liable for costs where the proceedings
other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012. These             have been initiated for an improper purpose or
rules do not serve the public interest of enabling       are considered to be vexatious or frivolous.
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       The draft Bill has not amended the definition of
not be limited to only increases in scale and density    material change of use and is limited to only
of the premises, as there are circumstances where        increases in scale and density of the premises.
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;



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