Page 5790 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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Mr Jensen: Well, partial deemed disallowance.
MR WOOD: Quite deemed disallowance, Mr Jensen. So, this debate is a good example of how systems are going to work. Between the letter and Mr Jensen, there are five issues I should respond to. The first one is a significant one of apparent and clear misleading information in the material provided to the Executive. There was an error, and the Planning Authority acknowledges that, in one of the documents it submitted in relation to this variation.
The authority's summary of responses received, prepared under subsection 18(2) of the Interim Planning Act, was an accurate reflection of the submissions received. Any reasonable interpretation of the total documents would have revealed an honest mistake. The document in question is not a statutory document; nor is it a mandatory obligation of the Planning Authority to provide the information.
The error occurred in additional information provided by the Planning Authority to the Executive. What happened was that a comment for a Weston variation, the Mirinjani Nursing Home, was punched into an additional piece of paper relating to this variation. That was an honest mistake on the part of the Planning Authority. It was not one that was a particular part of the decision making process, unfortunate as it was.
When I looked at the documents I read through all the material before making my recommendation to my colleagues, and, assessing the full impact of all the documents, as I did, it was clearly a variation that should have proceeded, and I think the debate today will show that. I am sorry that that mistake occurred. It was unfortunate. It was a genuine error of slippage from one thing to another, but I repeat that the overall impact of the major part of the documentation clearly supported the variation.
Mr Jensen claimed that residents' suggestions and concerns have been ignored. I have to say that that is not the case. I think that this variation attends to the concerns of the residents. The proposal that you now see in front of you is a rather different proposal from that which was first put out. I commend the residents for their attention to this; I commend the Planning Authority for their attention to those residents. I believe that as a result of the consultation, of which Mr Jensen was a part, and maybe Mrs Nolan - I do not know whether she was concerned; I know that she has an interest in that area - this has been changed considerably. That meeting was held about a month ago.
Arising from that, the ACT Housing Trust has prepared an alternative development scheme for the site which provides for a majority of single-storey dwellings in line with residents' objections to two-storey houses. Bear in mind that the residents themselves could have two-storey houses - they are quite entitled to that - although I
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