Page 1046 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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community's needs as well as being accessible, unambiguous and relatively simple to use. Of course, the final document must also meet the Commonwealth's requirement that it be consistent with the National Capital Plan.
The Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning referred the draft Territory Plan to the PDI Committee on 1 December 1992. In accordance with sections 25 and 26 of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, the Minister asked the committee to prepare a report on the draft variation and to do so without undue delay. Though the proposed Territory Plan essentially comprises a comprehensive written statement and a map, the papers associated with the draft plan are voluminous. They include a very large set of consultation documents which enable any one of the 1,000 submissions to the Planning Authority to be tracked through the authority's processing stage and for its key points to be clearly identified.
The committee has already asked for and received additional documentation on matters raised in the draft plan. Among other matters, the additional documentation bears on the extent and nature of consultation between governments in the ACT region - that is, the Commonwealth, State and local governments - the policies of the old NCDC, the elements of the North Canberra area strategy, which is being funded in part by the Commonwealth Government under its building better cities program, and supplementary material on the Planning Authority's handling of submissions.
On 3 February 1993 the committee resolved to set aside 12 dates in March and April for examination of the draft Territory Plan. On 3 March the committee resolved to call for public comment on the draft plan, with members anxious to stress that the committee wanted to hear from those persons and organisations who made a submission on the earlier version of the plan and who remain dissatisfied with the response of the ACT Planning Authority to the issues raised in their submissions.
The committee believes that in making this decision it steered the right course between too greatly opening up a renewed period of public comment and too restrictively confining that public comment. To call for submissions on every element of the draft plan would likely see the committee inundated by the 1,000 submissions already received and processed by the Planning Authority in earlier periods of public consultation. By requesting members of the public to advise the committee where they think the planners have inadequately dealt with their submissions, the committee intends to act as a check on the ACT Planning Authority and provide people with a further opportunity to air their concerns. I assure members of the public that members of the PDI Committee have no hesitation in tackling the planners over any matter to do with the draft Territory Plan.
Advertisements appeared in the Canberra Times on Saturday, 6 March, the Canberra Chronicle on Tuesday, 9 March, and the Valley View on Wednesday, 10 March. The advertisements requested that public comment be passed to the committee by the last day of March, that is yesterday, which gives just sufficient time to arrange a set of three or four public hearings on the matters raised.
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