Page 3348 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 21 October 2014
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By way of background, under sections 29, 30 and 30A of the Building Act, a building certifier can only issue a building approval if satisfied on reasonable grounds that the proposals reflected in the building plans are lawful and meet relevant requirements under the act. There are a number of requirements related to this but a key one is that building approval only be issued if the proposal involves development that either has development approval under the Planning and Development Act or is exempt from requiring development approval under the Planning and Development Regulation. If there is no development approval, the certifier must assess whether the proposal is exempt from requiring development approval before issuing the building approval under the Building Act. Development that is exempt from requiring development approval is often referred to as DA exempt and I will use this terminology in my following comments.
The proposed amendments to the Building Act contained in this bill will strengthen and clarify documentation requirements relating to this assessment by the certifier that the site work involved in the application for building approval is DA exempt. The proposed amendments achieve this, in part, by the insertion of new section 28(1A) in clause 5 and new section 29(1)(g) in clause 8 of the bill.
New section 28(1A) requires the certifier to issue a new document called a site work notice in connection with the site work that is DA exempt. The site work notice must set out the basis on which the certifier concluded that the relevant site work is DA exempt.
The proposed amendments to the building regulation in this bill also provide guidance about what is to be included in the site work notice. In particular, new section 9A of the Building (General) Regulation 2008 requires the site work notice to identify those provisions of the Planning and Development Regulation 2008 and the territory plan codes that the certifier relied on in finding that the proposal was DA exempt. The new site work notice will not be required in all cases. In some cases the DA-exempt status of the proposal may have already been affirmed by a different, separate process under the Planning and Development Act.
Under section 138D of the Planning and Development Act a proponent may apply to a works assessor or building surveyor for a notice confirming whether the relevant development is DA exempt. This is an optional process. The act refers to such a notice as an exemption assessment D notice. If such a notice is issued and the notice affirms that the proposal is DA exempt, then there is no need for the certifier to repeat this assessment under the Building Act. The bill will not require a site work notice in this instance. A similar approach is taken by the bill if the Planning and Land Authority makes a declaration in relation to the proposal under section 1.100A or 1.100AB of schedule 1 of the Planning and Development Regulation to the effect that the proposed single dwelling is exempt: there is no requirement for the certifier to repeat this assessment under the Building Act.
I would also like to note at this point that the bill amends the Planning and Development Regulation to ensure that the content requirements for exemption D notices are consistent with the content requirements for the site work notice. The
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