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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3697 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

development are set out in the Territory Plan through the normal process for varying the plan. So you need to see subdivisions B and C of division 3 of part 2 of the act. This process involves statutory requirements for public consultation, a review by the Legislative Assembly committee, executive approval and the opportunity for the Assembly to disallow the draft variation. It gets to be defined land through a variation process.

Detailed subdivision designs for the land are prepared progressively in accordance with the principles and policies set out in the plan. Upon approval of the subdivision of a parcel or part of a parcel of defined land, the ACT Planning Authority, by notice published in the government Gazette, pursuant to section 32 of the act, varies the plan, including the map and, if necessary, the written statement, to specify the purposes for which the land may be used. Then upon variation of the plan, pursuant to section 32 of the act, the parcel of land which is subdivided ceases to be defined land. Once all of the land identified in one of the documents setting out the principles and policies has ceased to be defined land, the document itself ceases to be part of the plan. There is a very definite process by which land become defined land in the first place.

That leads to the second ground for opposing this bill-cost. Subdivision and engineering design for land development are expensive. They contribute in the order of $4,000 to $5,000 to the cost of each block of land. Sometimes significant periods can elapse between initial planning and eventual development of the land. It is an extremely inefficient use of resources to expend the sort of money required to undertake this work so far ahead of when it is required.

Furthermore, if circumstances change-for instance, you might find an endangered species or something else that would cause the land not to be used in the intended manner-the planning needs to be adjusted. The significant investment involved in the detailed subdivision and engineering design would be wasted and you would have to go through the variation process yet again for a parcel of land that may not even have been used.

The government's third ground for opposing the bill flows from the previous two. It is likely to impact adversely on the price of land. Unless the taxpayers of the ACT are willing to subsidise the development industry by absorbing the cost of detailed subdivision and engineering design, that cost will have to be factored into the reserve price set for the raw land, which will in turn flow into the end price of the developed land to consumers. The timeframes and uncertainty associated with making changes to existing plans will also contribute to higher prices as the development industry passes on its holding costs.

No system is perfect. It is true that there has been some recent controversy associated with the defined land system. However, let us keep the matter in perspective. Over 7,000 blocks of land have been developed in Gungahlin under this system, with only a handful of issues attributable to the system having arisen. Most of these have satisfactorily resolved.

The problems have generally occurred when interested viewers of the Territory Plan have misinterpreted the implications of the defined land provisions. However, to date, no mechanism has existed to enable the provisions to be updated when changes occur. To

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