Page 983 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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and, secondly, because an awful lot of those will be entirely electrically powered. As we are all aware, the ACT has committed to purchase 100 per cent renewable electricity; so while it is not absolutely zero emissions, it is very close to it.
The third simple, practical change in this bill is a change to the Residential Tenancies Act. When a residential property is advertised for rental, a current, valid energy efficiency rating must be disclosed in the advertisement. If landlords do not have a rating, they do not have to disclose it. To be current, a rating must be no more than six months old. In practice, of course, very few landlords produce a rating specifically for their rental property, so the only rental ads that have ratings are those for properties that have just been sold. So there are some, but my bill will mean there are more energy efficiency ratings in rental ads, with no additional cost to landlords. It will do this by allowing existing ratings to be used for rental properties for up to 18 months after they were first created. This will cover more rental properties, allowing renters to choose energy efficient homes and putting market pressure on landlords to upgrade.
My bill also responds directly to the concerns that constituents and residents groups have raised with me about trying to engage with the planning system. I am frequently contacted by people and groups who feel aggrieved by a development proposal and are finding it difficult to have their say and be listened to. These difficulties are amplified by gaps and shortcomings in the planning system that can be easily fixed but have not yet been fixed.
My bill introduces a number of simple, practical changes to fix these problems. For example, my bill will deal with the yearly problem of development applications being out for consultation over Christmas, which means that neighbours only find out about them when it is too late to make a submission. It will extend the consultation period for development applications over the Christmas-new year period by around three weeks to ensure community members do not miss out on a chance to make a submission. No development application consultation will close between 20 December and 10 January inclusive.
People in my electorate have complained to me that, because they live in the Molonglo Valley, development in their area does not have to hold any pre-development application consultation. They are right; sadly, this is the case. While larger developments in older parts of Canberra have to hold pre-development application consultation, larger developments in several new suburbs like Wright, Coombs, Lawson and Moncrieff do not. This can mean that the first time a resident knows about an eight-storey building being proposed across the road from their single-storey dream home is when the directorate’s notice sign goes up. By that stage the developers have spent a lot of money on design and are very reluctant to substantially reconsider their proposal. My bill will fix this problem by removing the exclusion for larger developments in new suburbs when the development is within 100 metres of a home. This will be of significant benefit to my constituents in Wright, Coombs and Denman Prospect.
In direct response to the concerns of residents and environmental groups, my bill will fix a large number of these sorts of problems. It will introduce ACAT appeal rights
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