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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4856 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

The Greens support the integration of land planning and management to ensure that planning policies are implemented correctly. However, we believe that land planning should still be the responsibility of professional planners reporting directly to the Minister. We are not convinced that the previous deficiencies in land administration within the old Department of the Environment, Land and Planning are not going to be repeated, particularly in terms of ensuring that the planning function is not made subservient to the land development function.

We are concerned that environmental and social considerations which underlie land planning are being swamped by short-term economic considerations. The Liberal Government's so-called strategic plan for Canberra illustrates this point very well. I note that the Government has attempted to address this issue by proposing the establishment of a Commissioner for Land and Planning. The Greens support the concept of independent and transparent decision-making over development applications, but we believe that this can best be done through the establishment of an independent planning authority. The Government's proposal is too fragmented and too complex. We believe that an independent planning authority would ensure more accountability over planning decisions than the current situation. We want all planning to be integrated in one organisation, and we want this organisation to be directly accountable to the Minister and the Assembly. We do not want this organisation buried in another department.

On the question of betterment or change of use charges, the Greens support the levying of this charge at 100 per cent of the change of value of the lease. The Government has provided no solid justification of why the 75 per cent figure proposed in the Bill will actually be better for the Territory. In fact, when the change to 75 per cent was announced in the budget, the Government announced at the same time that it had commissioned an academic at the ANU to undertake a study of the impact that that change of use charge has on investment. Do you have the results of that?

Mr Humphries: No, of course not.

MS HORODNY: No; that is right, Mr Humphries. Obviously, the Government has made its decision on 75 per cent before it has done any analysis of the impact of this change. Mr Humphries just confirmed that the study has not yet been completed, so I do not know with what confidence he can make a decision like this. The Greens do, however, support in principle the giving of remissions on change of use charges of no less than 50 per cent in very specific cases where there would be significant community benefit provided by the development that would at least match the revenue forgone. It is critical, however, that decisions over such remissions are fully transparent and subject to public and Assembly scrutiny. It should also be noted that we believe that the change of use charge should be in addition to developer contributions for specific public works required around a particular development - for example, changes to traffic arrangements in adjacent streets.

On the issue of appeal rights, we disagree with the Stein recommendations. Stein sought to limit third-party appeals to adjoining lessees of a development and residents associations. The Bill has implemented this by limiting appeals to persons who are substantially and adversely affected by a decision. We believe that this definition is far too narrow, as a particular development can have far wider impact than just on the

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