Page 3713 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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Gungahlin - Environmental Controls
MR MOORE: My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning. It is a question of which I have given him short notice. Is the Minister aware that at the John Overall Offices, when members of the public make requests for information regarding the new suburbs in Gungahlin and quote block and section numbers, the Planning Authority has no record of the details of the subdivisions members of the public are referring to? Does the Planning Authority therefore have appropriate control mechanisms to ensure the best siting of blocks and sections within subdivisions to provide for adequate environmental considerations?
MR WOOD: Mr Moore did give me notice of the question, although he did not give me any specifics. As best I can understand, if a member of the community has gone to the information office with block and section numbers and has been told "We do not have them", I believe that the answer is simply that in many circumstances blocks are sold off a plan, off a map. They are working from agents' material; they are not necessarily the formal documents prepared by the Planning Authority. The agents are often ahead of the completion of the formal work. People come in with the number the agent gives them, but there is no block and section number within DELP simply because that work has not yet been done. That is often the way it happens. If there is a specific case that is other than that, I would be happy to respond to it.
Mr Moore: That is what we are talking about. The question is about adequate environmental considerations. How do you control environmental considerations?
MR WOOD: I will go on and answer the question as I understand it. I am not sure necessarily of the connection between the first and second questions. By the time the agents have got their plans under way, they have broad approval for the subdivision. In that approval there are increasingly tougher guidelines, better guidelines, for environmental control - for example, orientation to the sun.
MR MOORE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Mr Wood has just told us that, before the Planning Authority has blocks and sections in place, developers can actually sell those blocks and sections and identify them. What the Minister has indicated is that there is a lack of control over how those blocks are sited. Minister, what are you intending to do about it?
MR WOOD: No, I have not indicated that at all. The Planning Authority gives agreement to what the developers bring in. Then there is a fairly long process - I think a very efficient one, but a process of some time - before that work is completed and formalised by block and section. There are quite a number of steps to be taken. In that interim, developers are quite keen to sell that land. They want to get rid of it as soon as possible so that they are not paying interest and the like. It is that interim that I think we are talking about.
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