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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (2 March) . . Page.. 484 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
must be removed. There is no evidence, there has been no substantive analysis and indeed there has been a concession that it is not the only factor. There is no justification for removing change of use charge or reducing it to 50 per cent.
Mr Speaker, I think I have dealt with the main issues outlined in my dissenting report. In conclusion, I would just like to outline recommendation 2, which is missing from page 46 of my dissenting report. I will make sure an erratum is circulated to members. My recommendation 2 reads:
The Government develop as a matter of urgency a Development Rights Register, as outlined in the Report into the Administration of the ACT Leasehold, to provide greater certainty for prospective developments.
In my dissenting report I have not taken a purely negative approach. (Extension of time granted) I have made two recommendations which will have a positive impact in trying to mitigate the perceived difficulties the change of use charge has on development. The first is the recommendation I have just read out for the establishment of a development rights register. Evidence presented to the committee highlighted the fact that developers often had a problem in understanding exactly what was going to be the full impact of change of use charge. It was very difficult to know exactly what the level would be.
In 1997 the Stein report suggested a way of addressing this problem and yet it has never been properly addressed in any way. The establishment of a development rights register would give developers certainty as to the levels of betterment that will be required to pay for a particular development. It is quite clear that this proposal could work. Yet it has never been properly addressed. I recommend that it should be.
My other positive recommendation relates to the establishment of a process for the developers of proposals to pay change of use charge over the life of the development project. Currently developers are required to pay change of use charge when they vary the lease and before the project begins. Evidence to the committee showed that this is a hurdle for some developers. In our public hearings we explored the option of having change of use charge paid over the life of a development project so that instead of developers paying it up front they could pay the full amount of the change of use charge over the life of the development project as they started to recoup some of their costs as the project came on line in stages. But before the entire project was finished all change of use charge would have to be paid. This is another positive proposal which helps to overcome the hurdles of betterment in the eyes of developer proponents.
I am sure that the Assembly will be considering this issue in much more detail. Members will see that my key recommendation relates to reverting to betterment of 100 per cent. This is no surprise, I am sure, to many members. It is a reiteration of the Labor Party's policy on this issue. More importantly, it is a reiteration of the community's interest in the improved value of land and the sale of development rights to lessees.
MR
RUGENDYKE (11.01): This report by the Planning and Urban Services Committee was always destined to be one which would be dissented from, simply because of the diverse philosophical positions of members. Overall, I think the
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