Page 3174 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 20 August 2019
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DA amendments to avoid proper assessment of everything, who get something passed and then amend it so that it is not as environmentally or socially desirable as the original DA was. I am hopeful that if there are more DA staff at EPSDD, this sort of bad practice will be detected and controlled.
I have some comments on the affordable housing responsibilities of EPSDD and the SLA, but the Housing ACT session is going to be happening very soon and I will talk about all of these housing issues together.
Mr Parton: I look forward to it.
MS LE COUTEUR: Thank you, Mr Parton. In conclusion, there are some good planning and land development initiatives in the budget, but overwhelmingly my comment is that we need to do a lot more work to change our planning and change the direction of Canberra to recognise that there is a climate emergency. I say that to all of the Assembly. We voted to recognise that there is a climate emergency. The ACT Assembly has made some efforts to reduce the climate emergency, but we need to make a lot more if things are not to get considerably worse than they are.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (3.14): Madam Deputy Speaker, the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate is responsible for the very form and fabric of our great territory. The output areas of EPSDD, for which I have shadow responsibility, have a total cost of almost $68 million in 2019-20, with the appropriation tipping in a little under $61 million in 2019-20.
The directorate has a staffing target of 685 FTE in 2019-20, which is up somewhat from the 629 outcome for 2017-18. This staffing level covers all the directorate’s outputs, not just the planning, urban renewal, and public housing renewal taskforce outputs.
The directorate staff involved in planning have the task of managing the Territory Plan and also delivering this government’s planning objectives. This is no menial endeavour in a jurisdiction where strategic planning performed by state governments and the functions otherwise performed by local councils all fall within the same organisation.
While the directorate can exploit the efficiencies from vertical integration, the functional structure does involve a significant customer interface, namely the Canberra community. Setting aside areas of National Capital Authority responsibility, nothing can be built in Canberra without planning and development approvals processed and issued by this directorate.
Those approvals must conform with the mass of codes and zoning rules oversighted by this directorate. It has a pivotal role in developing not only the land release targets but also what the land can be used for. So its responsibilities touch on and affect the lives of most of us in one form or another. They will shape our future, our aspirations for a family home and our day-to-day lifestyles.
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