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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (14 June) . . Page.. 1700 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):

errors being perpetuated and compounded by requiring development applications to be submitted with accurate survey details.

The bill proposes that applications to undertake development involving:

alterations and additions to buildings in developed areas;

additional construction in developed areas; and

redevelopment in developed areas

are to be accompanied by a certificate from a registered surveyor that:

shows the boundaries of the land where the development is to be undertaken;

shows the location of each building or structure on the land; and

verifies that any plans for the construction work lodged with the application are based on correct assumptions about the physical features of the land.

Mr Speaker, I was alerted to the anomalies in the system through a dual-occupancy development in Latham that had caused a raft of problems that could have been avoided if there had been a requirement for the developer to submit accurate and up-to-date siting details. It is a fundamental expectation that developments are based on accurate information. But unfortunately this does not occur on occasions and there is no mechanism to recognise the mistakes.

Incorrect sitings can lead to a host of building height and location discrepancies that result in time-wasting and expensive disputes. The Latham instance that I have become familiar with over the last 12 months or so dragged on for more than three years because the mistakes caused the dual occupancy development to be too large for the block. In short, the original house on the block was wrongly sited by a significant amount and it was this error that gave rise to a series of anomalies that are far too detailed to expand on further here today.

Among the approved solutions was cutting off the corner of the dual occupancy house in order to meet minimum distance requirements from the boundary and removing a car park to enable both buildings to fit. It is an extraordinary situation to square off the corner of a house to make it fit, and it is a situation that could have been avoided if the architect had designed the development with the correct information.

While it is now too late for that family in Latham to have the situation rectified, they would certainly like to see the Assembly do what it can to ensure that this does not occur to other residents. My further research on the topic indicated that this is not a one-off. It would be prudent for the Assembly to adopt this measure to safeguard members of the community from unintended consequences of such historical anomalies.

Of course, there are cost implications for the developers to obtain a registered survey certificate which contains three-dimensional information. While it is critical to locate existing structures, it is just as critical to address on a factual basis issues of overlooking and visual privacy. The benefit of investing to get the information right in the first instance certainly outweighs the time, despair and the expense of mopping up the problems caused by architects working off old or incorrect information.

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