Page 1266 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2016
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The key concepts embodied in the bill may seem simple but they deliver powerful planning options for proponents that have significant flow-on benefits to the community and the ACT community as a whole.
The first concept is a concept that has potential to deliver the single most beneficial opportunity to the community in the whole bill. The concept dispels the uncertainty that typically surrounds any draft variation to the territory plan because the effects of the variation on the ground are unknown. This concept is one that will allow a proponent to approach the Planning and Land Authority with an idea for a major proposal that could deliver an innovative and sustainable planning outcome, but the current territory plan does not permit a development application being considered. In collaboration with the proponent, the authority could explore the merits of the proposal, and, if sufficiently viable, a draft territory plan variation could be prepared and a complementary development application submitted. And here is the bells and whistles moment: both the draft territory plan variation and the development application would be notified at the same time. So for the first time in recent planning history, the community will be able to review a development proposal as a holistic package, both the draft territory variation and the DA.
The bill also includes a variant of this concept by allowing the DA to be lodged after a draft territory plan variation has been notified. Again the community can see, by matching up the draft variation that the DA relates to, and again viewing the whole planning package to come to an informed view about a development proposal.
I would like to make a comment at this time in regard to Mr Coe’s comments on DAs that are not successful. I can assure the Assembly that the territory plan variation is assessed on its merits and it would be inappropriate to have the DA influence the territory plan variation as it is of a higher order in legislation.
The bill does not only deal with draft territory plan variations and the DA. It also deals with a draft environmental impact statement and a DA being assessed through a concurrent process. As with a concurrent DA and draft variation plan variation, there are significant time savings available to a proponent that elects to use this process. Again there are benefits to the community in having access to the holistic package—the draft environmental impact statement and the DA—at the same time. The bill also includes a variant here, by extending the process to an application to use a prior environmental study to support the DA.
I would like to assure members that these innovative processes delivered by the bill do not change or weaken in any way existing legislated assessment processes. The bill merely brings together three distinct planning processes for notification purposes, after which each process is completed as it is now. It is also important to note that neither I as the planning minister nor the Planning and Land Authority can approve the DA until each of the other concurrent processes is completed.
It is good to see already some third-party endorsement for this. The ACT Property Council has expressed its support for this bill. It says:
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