Page 1167 - Week 03 - Thursday, 31 March 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
assessment of the social, cultural and economic impacts of the proposed deconcessionalisation. This ensures that the level and content of these assessments are more appropriately focused.
Because of the importance of this assessment in a DA application, it was considered that the proponent must have some guidance about what information should be included in an assessment of the social, cultural and economic impacts. Previously, this would have been dealt with in an EIS scoping document. However, once a deconcessionalisation of a lease is no longer an EIS trigger, there will be no scoping document.
The amendments proposed provide the power for a regulation to prescribe the requirements for an assessment and for the planning minister to make guidelines for their preparation. A guideline will be a notifiable instrument.
Clause 22 makes comments made on proposed technical variations to the territory plan publicly available. The act requires the ACT Planning and Land Authority to undertake consultation on a technical variation to the territory plan. However, under present arrangements, if comments are made, the public cannot access these comments unless they apply under the Freedom of Information Act. The proposed amendment requires that the notice advising of the consultation will also say that comments will be available to the public. This is consistent with what happens for other types of consultation and ensures that the technical variation is more transparent.
The bill also makes some important amendments to the Unit Titles Act 2001. These amendments relate to ensuring the act adequately deals with unit title developments that are complete in stages.
Section 20 of the act presently deals with the approval of applications and provides for one application and one decision. It does not cater for a staged development application, although these types of applications have always been available. New section 20(1)(a) provides that an application that is for a staged development can be approved at each stage of the development, whether or not it is only one stage or many stages. This change will help industry, in that it further streamlines the unit titles process.
This bill also amends section 17 subsections (4) and (5) so that a unit title application for a development proposed to be done in stages includes a unit title assessment report for each stage, rather than the current arrangements which only require such a report if a development is done in one stage. The same content requirements apply for a unit title assessment report whether the report is for unstaged or staged development.
This bill is another example of the government providing a practical and expedient response to issues. This bill is part of the government’s ongoing efforts to improve the territory’s planning system to meet the needs of our local economy, industry, the environment and, most importantly, the community.
The bill, whilst minor and technical in nature, is another important building block in the continuing development of modern and accessible planning laws that are at the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video