Page 2880 - Week 09 - Thursday, 27 September 2007
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was also dependent on how the other sections of the order relating to the storage of building materials was complied with.
(3) No.
The order is in two parts with compliance with the vegetation and storage of wood and timber building materials requirements set for the
6 December 2004 and compliance with the building and associated works set for 5 March 2005. Given the history of the works on the lease the Authority allowed extra time from the end of the last date for compliance before recommencing inspections at the lease.
(4) No. The inspection of 16 June 2005 identified that mature canes continued to extend over the lease boundaries.
(5) No
(6) Yes
(7) On 1 December 2005 four officers from the Authority appointed as inspectors under the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991 sought to execute a valid warrant issued by the Magistrates Court.
The officers were unable to make contact with anyone inside the house so they, under police observation, used bolt cutters to gain entry to the lease.
The evidence gathered (some of which is at Attachment B) showed that the order had not been complied with either in relation to the vegetation or the building works.
(8) Yes.
(9) No
(10) Yes, in a letter from the Chief Planning Executive to the lessees on 29 May 2007 (Attachment C).
(11) Unable to answer as the subsequent actions are not identified.
(12) Yes, the ACT Government Solicitors Office is seeking to recover its costs on behalf of the Territory. The lessees were fully informed when they lodged their application to the ACT Supreme Court for a review of the AAT’s decision that they were entering a cost jurisdiction.
Appeals on decisions of the Tribunal’s can only be made on a point of law. The decision that the lessees were contesting was one where the law was not ambiguous nor was the way the Authority had applied the law.
The hearing before Crispin J ran over two days. The lessees presented eleven grounds on which they claimed the Tribunal had erred in law in its decision. The grounds included the relative weights that the Tribunal had placed on various pieces of evidence and the conclusions drawn there from.
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