Page 1166 - Week 03 - Thursday, 31 March 2011
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amendments to the territory plan; finetune requirements in relation to exemption assessment notices; and specify the type of information supplied to the Land Titles Office in relation to development applications.
I will only discuss the more significant changes as these are detailed in the explanatory notes available for the more minor amendments. The bill proposes amendments to the Planning and Development Act that clarify the language used for notification in relation to a development application. The act uses the term “consultation” extensively but in different contexts. For example, consultation is required under section 61 for a draft territory plan variation, and section 66 deals with public consultation on a draft territory plan variation and so on. These types of consultation are where ACTPLA puts information out for active interaction, consideration, review and comment.
In relation to development applications, the act presently uses both the words “consultation” and “notification”, and this has caused confusion. This has contributed to the general misunderstanding about the Planning and Land Authority’s role in notifying development applications. Clearly many in the community and elsewhere think that ACTPLA should undertake consultation on development applications.
In relation to a development application under the act, ACTPLA’s responsibility is to notify the community about a development application that the authority has received. This is so that people who could potentially be affected by the proposed development, such as a neighbour, have the necessary information and can make a comment on the proposed development. It is not an interactive discussion with notified persons.
ACTPLA does not have a representative or advocacy role for development applications. ACTPLA must be able to remain impartial in its assessment processes and consider applications and the views of those who have made submissions on the merit of their arguments having regard to the planning rules that exist.
Put simply, ACTPLA receives a development application, it notifies the development application—that is, it tells the community that a development application has been lodged—and invites submissions from the community. ACTPLA then assesses the development application against planning rules that this Assembly has put in place and assesses comments and points made in public submissions against those same rules. It then makes a decision on the development application, to approve it, to refuse it or to approve it with conditions, and tells the applicant and those who made submissions the outcome of this assessment through a formal notice of decision.
The Macquarie Dictionary definition for “notification” is reflective of what “consultation” means when it is part of the development application process—that is, “to give notice to, or inform, of something; to make known; to give information”. Therefore, the bill amends those sections which relate to the DA process to remove the word “consultation” where it appears and substitute with “notification”.
Clause 30 of the bill makes amendments as a consequence of recent EIS reforms. One reform means that it will no longer be necessary to prepare an EIS prior to lodgement of a DA to deconcessionalise a lease. Instead, the application must include an
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