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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 325 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
(2) The Executive may, by written notice to the authority, exempt the authority from complying with section 19 (Public consultation-notification) and section 19B (Public consultation-availability of draft plan variation etc) in relation to the draft plan variation.
(3) If the Executive gives notice to the authority under subsection (2), the authority must obtain such information about the public attitudes to the draft plan variation as is reasonable in the circumstances.
Mr Speaker, a need for the draft variation has arisen following the approval in June this year of variation No 158, concerning a review of the group centre policies. This included changes to the Kingston Group Centre precinct. It has recently come to the attention of Planning and Land Management that some block and section numbers for the shop size control in precinct "a", Kingston, have been wrongly designated.
The approved variation contains at item (b), under the heading "Controls"on page 61, a heading which reads, "Shop size, Kingston section 21, blocks 21 to 33". It should, in fact, read, "Shop size, Kingston section 22, blocks 21, 25 and 33."This is because the blocks referred to are on the eastern side of Jardine Street in section 22, whereas section 21 is on the western side of Jardine Street. PALM needs to correct the plan as expeditiously as possible. The executive agreed that the appropriate mechanism for achieving this was through a draft variation to the Territory Plan under section 19C of the Land Act, which exempts PALM from the need for public consultation on the draft variation.
On receipt of that exemption granted by the executive on 13 November last year, PALM was required to ascertain information on public attitudes to the draft variation, as is reasonable in the circumstances.
On this matter, I consider that the public consultation for, and subsequent approval of variation 158 clearly indicated public acceptance for the intention of the variation in relation to the Kingston Group Centre Precinct. This is supported by the fact that the following information, which was included in the explanatory statement of both the draft and the final variation 158 documents, did not elicit any specific comment. The statement reads:
The Green Square is the heart of the centre and its role will be further strengthened with the completion of public place improvements under the Precinct Management Program. The major change proposed is to incorporate the east side of Jardine Street into the retail core and introduce a maximum shop size of 300m2 for these premises. This will enable the establishment of speciality shops and will positively affect the overall functioning of the centre and better utilise the improved public places.
Mr Speaker, it can seen from the statement that the clear intention was to include the eastern side of Jardine Street, section 22, in the retail core-and the reference to section 21, blocks 21 to 33, in the variation document was an error. The Planning and Environment Committee considered the draft variation and, in its report No 11 of November last year, endorsed the variation.
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