Page 1288 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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requiring development approval. Issuing a building approval in contravention of these requirements will be an offence, with a maximum penalty of $6,000 for individuals or $30,000 for corporations. Licence disciplinary action will also be available with a range of licence sanctions, including cancellation of a certifier’s licence as the most severe disciplinary action available.
Existing requirements in the Building Act that oblige certifiers to consult with bodies such as the ACT Fire Brigade and utilities will be amended. These referral advice entities with be provided with certain powers to veto a building approval application, but in exchange these entities will be bound by their advice in circumstances where their advice has been considered in the granting of a building approval. An intended outcome is to provide a greater level of certainty about the referral entities advice for all stakeholders in line with similar provisions of the Planning and Development Bill Act 2007.
Certifiers will be obliged to notify the ACT Planning and Land Authority of any suspicions that the certifier forms about site work being done in contravention of the Planning and Development Act 2007. This will enable the planning and land authority to take early action, if appropriate, to ensure that such work is rectified. A certifier will also have to notify the ACT Construction Occupations Registrar if the certifier finds building work that is fundamentally noncompliant with certain Building Act 2004 requirements. The new provision applies where work so grossly contravenes prescribed requirements that it is likely to have occurred deliberately or through significant incompetence. Regulations will prescribe criteria for determining if work is fundamentally noncompliant.
The bill extends the grounds that may be relied upon to prohibit carrying out building work by written notice, a stop work notice. The new grounds relate to building plans containing materially false or contradictory information or information that materially misrepresents the fact. The bill establishes a process to permit a certificate of occupancy and use to be issued in certain circumstances where the pre-reform provisions do not cater for the issuing of such a certificate. This provision is to cater for the circumstance where, due to unlawful construction or for legitimate reasons, the documentary evidence that building work complies with the requirements is not reasonably available.
An intended outcome is to provide a codified process for determining if such buildings are sound and, if so, to permit their occupation and use, otherwise it may be unlawful to occupy or use such buildings, and the only remedy may be demolition. The process has adequate safeguards to ensure it is a last resort and to deter exploitation. It will not protect an unlawfully constructed building from being subject to compliance action, but will allow it to be used in the meantime, if safe to do so.
Provisions in the Building Act currently only applying to individuals and corporations will be amended so that they can also apply to partners of a partnership, a possible way for certifiers to organise their business. This will ensure that all entities, individuals, corporations and partnerships must comply with the act and may be subject to disciplinary or other action under the Construction Occupations (Licensing) Act.
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