Page 305 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2012
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The concern the government has in mind is delay and uncertainty. That is the concern that led to the development of this regulation—delay in the realisation of the community’s and the government’s agreed goals for the area, as expressed in the territory plan and the Kingston foreshore regulation, and uncertainty as to the interpretation of the relevant territory plan rules due to the prospect of further legal proceedings and fresh interpretations of the plan.
The potential for this area to be subject to protracted legal disputation is evident from the nature of the area itself. The Kingston foreshore area has a number of particular characteristics. The land is of an exceptionally high monetary value and is subject to significant ongoing development and change. The land is predominantly zoned CZ5, meaning that it is available for commercial and mixed use development and is of a type typically purchased by development companies for later retail sale to individual purchasers. The location itself is unique, for geographical and historical reasons. These characteristics suggest that there are high stakes in this area, and there is the potential, regrettably, for significant disputation into the future.
The regulation that I made as minister focuses on ensuring that development that is in accordance with the relevant provisions of the territory plan is able to proceed. Importantly, the government had in consideration the precedent that had already been established in relation to the availability for standing before the ACAT in other areas of the city, such as the city centre and the town centres. That regulation was made in 2006.
The government are also aware that we were starting to see a pattern at the Kingston foreshore similar to a pattern that was emerging in the city and the town centres in the 2006 period, when development rivals were utilising the mechanisms of the third-party appeal mechanisms to hinder, to frustrate, the commercial objectives of their rivals and seek to gain some form of commercial advantage. In the government’s mind, this is not an appropriate use of the planning appeals mechanism. For the same reasons that we proposed and implemented the regulation to prohibit third-party appeal in the city and the town centres, we have taken the same view now in relation to Kingston foreshore.
The government is, of course, concerned with the potential for delay, for several reasons. Significant delay due to the ACAT process can create ongoing uncertainty as to the interpretation of the plan, affecting not just the immediate parties in the dispute but other potential developments subject to the same provisions. Delays to one or more projects and their impacts on other projects can effectively mean a delay to the realisation of the community-developed vision for the whole of the Kingston foreshore area. Such delay is of particular concern in this area given the historical, commercial and cultural importance of this area to Canberra.
I would also note that any delay to the release of new residential housing stock is unwelcome given the overall shortage and dwelling demand in the territory, in particular in the territory’s rental stock. For a developer involved in an ACAT dispute, the delay can result in significant holding costs, particularly in relation to developments of exceptionally high monetary value. In the view of the ACT Property
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