Page 1006 - Week 04 - Thursday, 18 June 1992
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Mr Moore: Two-and-a-half to three weeks.
MR LAMONT: Well, two-and-a-half to three months.
Mr Moore: Two-and-a-half to three weeks is the most you need.
MR LAMONT: It is absolute nonsense, Mr Moore. This matter would need to go through a process that you have outlined and then come back here to this Assembly.
Mr Moore: That is right.
MR LAMONT: This Assembly will get up at the end of next week and not sit again until 16 August.
Mr Stevenson: The 11th.
MR LAMONT: Thank you, Mr Stevenson. The 11th of August is some eight weeks away. So we are talking about at least eight weeks. I would suspect, as we are talking about the budget sitting, that it will not necessarily get priority during that budget session. It may; it may not. It may be that we do give it priority. But, if I use Mr Cornwell's sums from yesterday, we are talking about a delay in planning approval for courtyard or townhouse blocks equating to some $6,000 or $7,000.
Mr Moore: No, you are not.
MR LAMONT: Yes, you are, because you cannot approve the townhouse, courtyard or other blocks - - -
Mr De Domenico: Get into him, David.
MR LAMONT: Thank you, Tony; your support is edifying. You cannot approve the total plan unless these walls and/or garages are part of the plan and are approved at the same time. That is my understanding. Because of not being able to see the forest for the trees on this occasion, you are talking about a proposal, which generally has been accepted for seven years, costing prospective buyers, the builders, the community at large, another $6,000 or $7,000. That is the effect of delay of this variation. The new requirement which comes in from 16 July is that every single townhouse will be required to have a public consultation period before it can be constructed if the wall is the same height as every other townhouse wall that has been built for the last seven years.
Mr Moore then went on to talk about changes to policy by stealth. That is not the case. The committee, the building industry and this Assembly are able to keep a close watch on the extremely limited power of exemption of compliance that the planner has. It was not unknown to this Assembly, to members of this Assembly, or to previous members of the Planning Committee in the Assembly, that there was a blanket variation given under the authority of the planner for townhouse and courtyard blocks to have those walls at 1.5 metres. It has been common knowledge. It has been public knowledge that this is what the test is.
Madam Speaker, the delay in this process will certainly see added cost to the community, added cost to the home and cottage buyer, and I believe that for that reason alone this motion should be rejected on this occasion.
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