Page 522 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 1991
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He said that with regard to planning views are not considered. As a major statement it states, basically, that the views are not considered. It talks about privacy. It talks about being overshadowed and other things. One of the amenities not listed is the views. That is an incredible situation. He also talks about the whole area of planning with regard to amenities being a grey area. One would think that the major purpose would be to ensure the harmonious design of buildings, which is what the building booklet talks about. For that to be a grey area is indeed unusual.
Let us have a look at the actual approval that was given and that the Chief Minister spoke of a moment ago. He said that there is only one corner of a building, as I heard, that encroached on the requirement that the back of the building be at least 7.5 metres from the fence. Let us have a look at the particular statement here. Under Policy 4: Buildings in Relation to Rear Boundaries, it talks about performance standard and quantitative standards. Policy 4.2 states:
The minimum distance between the rear wall of a single storey building and the rear property boundary shall be 4 metres and the corresponding distance for a 2 storey building shall be 7.5 metres.
It says it clearly. It does give an allowance for this to be looked at but only where it does not encroach on neighbours. If it does, then it should not have been done. The fact that that has been allowed would appear to be a breach of the regulations.
There is an unusual situation. Apparently the developer's private surveyor gives a reading of the ground contour level one metre higher than the Government's surveyor. There are a number of questions that come out of this that Mr Jensen may like to address: Firstly, how is that the case; secondly, which is being used as the valid ground contour level; thirdly, there is some disagreement as to whether or not it is a two-storey or three-storey building. The first storey starts 1.8 metres from natural ground level. Above that you have two storeys of dwelling. The suggestion that it is a two-storey building seems a little bit unusual. It is certainly the height of a three-storey building.
In dealings with the bureaucracy on the matter - the planning people - Mr Johnston has been out on site a number of times, and he deserves to be congratulated for that. Mr Jensen has also been on site on a number of occasions. However, no valid action has been taken. There has been a lot of concern and sympathy. The building plans have not been given to the residents so that they could see exactly what is happening. They were trying to get hold of a copy of the building code; but the department said that they did not have any, and that the people could get them for some
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