Page 733 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 April 2014
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Moncrieff, significant changes to the lease variation charges regime, and a significant reduction in extension of time to commence and complete development fees.
When I introduced this bill last month I referred to the ability of the legislation to expedite priority development through the creation of special precinct areas and declarations of significant projects. I would like to discuss these amendments in more detail today because there has been significant misunderstanding about elements of this bill in some of the commentary we have seen to date.
The efficiency measures in this bill which allow a development application to be made and assessed against a proposed draft territory variation and permit a proponent to lodge a DA in the impact track with a draft environmental impact statement have been discussed by my colleagues; so I will not refer further to that today. But I will seek to emphasise that, as other members have mentioned in the debate, this bill is a transparent and democratic process. The bill works with the existing development assessment and territory plan variation process to allow the government to put priority projects to the community and to their elected representatives in this Assembly for comment and endorsements.
The bill requires the government of the day to declare its hand about which projects it believes are of priority for the territory and to nominate them through the process set out in this bill at the very beginning of the planning process. I note that the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety, performing its duties in the scrutiny of bills, has made comments on this report and I would like to address a number of these today.
Firstly, in relation to special precinct areas, the bill inserts new part 5.3A into the Planning and Development Act which allows the executive to vary the territory plan to identify a special precinct area. A special precinct area is a special area under the territory plan which allows developments of key public importance to proceed more efficiently. I would note that a special precinct area variation can also include a declaration of a project of major significance, and I will turn to this issue separately a little later.
Public consultation begins at the very beginning of the process. Under section 85A, the minister directs the Planning and Land Authority to consult on a draft proposal to establish a special precinct area. New section 85C provides that that proposal is subject to public consultation for at least 30 working days. New section 85F requires the Planning and Land Authority to prepare a report for the minister at the end of the consultation period setting out the issues raised during that period.
I note that copies of comments made during consultation must also be made available for public inspection. At the end of the consultation period, the draft proposal and analysis of comments are put to the minister and then to the territory executive for approval or revision. There are a number of checks and balances in this process. New section 85H requires the executive to assess whether the proposal to vary the territory plan meets the relevant criteria.
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