Page 311 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (12.21): The Greens generally support the Planning and Development Amendment Bill, although there are some clauses which we have some concerns about. Like my Liberal colleagues, I was pleased that this bill was put out as an exposure draft which allowed the various interest groups to have an input into the proposed provisions. I believe a number of changes were made to this bill as a result of the input. I believe that what we are debating now is a significant improvement on the original exposure draft. I note that some of the more contentious parts of the exposure draft were removed and I understand that these parts may be debated in a future bill.
I would just like to make one comment before going into the details of the bill. The minister made the comment in his presentation speech, “Happily, all parties permitted a power in the Planning and Development Act to modify the act by regulation.” Perhaps we should remind all members that at the time the Planning and Development Bill was approved by the Assembly it was a previous Assembly where the government had a majority, thus the other parties in this place were basically unable to make amendments. Had the bill been put forward for debate in the current Assembly I imagine it would be a different act in a number of respects.
One of the key things that this bill does is allow for adjustments to development approvals, as long as any changes are approvable within the existing codes and plans and also only if the amended plans mean that the DA can be assessed in a lower track—that is, in code track instead of merit. If the change is significant and means that the DA should be approved in a higher, more stringent track then the developer will have to resubmit and start the whole DA process again. That seems quite sensible. It is going to make life easier and reduce the workload for ACTPLA without relaxing any building or territory plan standards.
Clause 13 of the bill is a clause which clarifies any possible conflict between approvals being exempt from the DA process through development tables and DA provisions. We certainly support clauses which help to clarify such inconsistencies, as there are many ways to read the territory plan, in conjunction with leases, lease objections and DAs, which can leave many people, including me, at many points of the development chain quite confused.
I note that clause 16 extends the notification for lease variations to also include public notices to registered interest holders as well as major public notification. The Greens fully support this additional notification for lease variations, especially as you would expect that registered interest holders could well have relevant input during the comment period.
Clause 17 deals with failure of notification about a valid DA. This clause is of great concern to the Greens. I understand that it is merely being put in to consistently apply the same escape clause regarding notification to registered interest holders as already exists for adjoining premises and major public notification. However, this clause means that if ACTPLA fails to follow the public notification requirements and notify the full information for a merit or impact track DA, this does not affect the validity of the DA.
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