Page 1212 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
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My office has looked at the schools development approval exemption review, undertaken by Tania Parkes Consulting. On the whole, it shows that the balance between consultation for non-contentious school developments and DA exemptions was about right. The Greens were very concerned about the fact that these exemptions were being applied to all school sites for the four-year period, rather than just the sites which attracted federal stimulus project funding. However, I think that the feedback which has been received in this period, both from the community and from the different sections of government, has been useful in determining what the next step should be in terms of continuing some of the exemptions in the regulations.
It is important to remember that the Planning and Development Act is only relatively new, so we might consider this step to be something like moving from an L-plate to a P-plate. It is important, therefore, that we watch and review issues like this, to help the legislation evolve in a positive and constructive manner.
In the case of DA exemptions, one issue which can be incorporated into the planning process by the proponents is consulting with the community before the plans are finalised. The need for pre-consultation on larger scale developments is still in evolution but could be an appropriate process to apply in school proposal circumstances. Although this is only mandatory for larger developments in suburban areas, it could be a constructive exercise, as often community members raise valid concerns which reflect their local knowledge of their neighbourhood and can actually help improve a development and ensure that it is more in line with community needs and expectations. I am not proposing today that this be made mandatory, but I do hope that schools proponents may be given such advice from ACTPLA when developing their plans.
Independent of whether or not there is any form of community consultation, it is very important to ensure that at least notification of the proposed works in the close neighbourhood is undertaken. I see that this is supported by Tania Parkes in her review report. This is something already picked up by regulation from a previous PABLAB for building works which do not need development approval, and should cover this type of development already.
As Minister Corbell advised us in February of this motion before us today, my office took the opportunity offered to us of a briefing on the planned regulations. Thus I understand that there are no actual final regulations before us today, but we do have an agreed understanding of what will be in those regulations. Essentially, as Mr Corbell has outlined, there are three key parts, which we have agreed on.
I will start with the simple sections. The first is continuing the exemption for small projects—sections 1.99E to 1.99V. This includes things like signs, playgrounds, shade structures, verandahs, toilets and water tanks. I have not heard of any complaints about issues like this over the past four years, nor have my former colleagues. These issues seem to be generally fairly non-contentious. The exception to this is the issue of fences around schools, which there are certainly grounds for taking out of the exemptions, as there is not full community consensus that this is the best way to protect the school grounds while ensuring that they are also integrated with the local
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