Page 443 - Week 02 - Thursday, 11 February 2021
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The government understands that it is important that we maintain areas in the ACT where industrial activity can occur. However, we also recognise that uses that may have originally been appropriate in this estate, such as large-scale waste facilities and their impacts, may no longer be consistent with the character of the Fyshwick industrial estate.
The Planning and Development Amendment Bill seeks to ensure that we are locating waste facilities in the most appropriate areas of the ACT. The bill supports positioning such facilities in the most practical and safe settings possible while working towards achieving our other strategic waste management objectives and our obligations to manage waste in the ACT under the proximity principle.
To achieve this in the first instance, the legislation will prohibit the development of waste facilities in Fyshwick, both new facilities or for an existing waste facility that proposes expansion to the amount of waste handled on the land each year. This will not affect the existing 10 waste-related businesses in Fyshwick unless they propose to process more waste in the short-term.
Once the legislation is in force, the government will undertake a detailed review of planning policy to determine what waste activities are appropriate in Fyshwick. This will include assessing current and future activities and how they fit in with the character of the suburb into the future. This will include an assessment of the continuation of low-impact waste facilities in Fyshwick so that we can provide certainty to small and medium low-impact facilities about being able to establish new sites or expand in Fyshwick into the future. Accordingly, the bill provides an ability to make regulations so that sites or classes of waste facilities can be carved out from that prohibition in the future, under regulation.
This planning policy will be followed by a more holistic review of ACT’s long-term waste needs, including the potential need for large waste processing infrastructure and where this would be most appropriately located in the ACT. The government has a key role to play in balancing the needs of the community, business and industry while continuing to support the delivery of waste services for the fast-growing community of Canberra. The ACT government has continuously worked with industry and the community towards the shared goal of reducing waste and transitioning to a circular economy. This is important to ensure that waste facilities have a social licence to operate.
The issue of social licence was recognised in early 2020 when the ACT government released the ACT’s waste to energy policy, following extensive community consultation. The policy makes it clear that the thermal treatment of waste, including incineration, gasification and pyrolysis, will not be permitted in the ACT and does not have a social licence to operate. It also provides clear direction about the types of activities that are permitted under the policy, focusing on improving, avoiding, re-using and recycling waste in line with the waste hierarchy.
Just as we have been clear about our approach to waste to energy, this legislation provides a clear approach on the location of large-scale waste facilities in Fyshwick
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