Page 1514 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 2012
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The bill I present today proposes editorial, technical, consequential and minor policy amendments to the Building Act 2004, the Planning and Development Act 2007 and the Unit Titles Act 2001. The bill not only responds to needs identified by the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate and parliamentary counsel but also makes minor amendments because of amendments made by other bills.
I will now turn to some of the amendments made in the bill. The bill makes a number of technical and editorial amendments. Clause 4 amends the Building Act to make it clear that the building code can include additional external documents prescribed by the regulation.
Clause 7 amends the Planning and Development Act to make it clear that an estate development plan which forms part of a development application is an associated document. An associated document is a document that forms part of the development application and the act lists those documents at section 30. Because an associated document is part of the development application it is also required to be available on the public register. In this way the public has the complete development application available for inspection.
Clause 31 amends the Unit Titles Regulation 2001 to correct a numbering error.
This bill also includes some minor policy amendments. Clause 13 inserts a new type of technical amendment to vary the territory plan at section 87 of the Planning and Development Act 2007. The proposed new type of technical amendment is in keeping with existing types of technical amendments and includes an error variation, a code variation or a variation to bring the territory plan into line with the national capital plan. There is, however, presently no form of technical variation that would allow an amendment that relocates a provision in the territory plan to elsewhere within the territory plan when there is no change in substance to the plan. This type of technical variation is necessary, for instance, as it would allow site specific provisions to be moved to the relevant suburb precinct code. The proposed amendment allows this.
This type of minor policy amendment requires that consideration is given to how the proposed amendment sits within the framework of the act. The act already provides that certain technical amendments require limited consultation while others require none. Limited consultation means that a notice will be placed in a daily newspaper that will describe the proposed technical amendment, state where relevant documents can be inspected and the time frame within which written comments can be made. Section 88 of the act provides that code variations, a variation in relation to future urban area and a variation that clarifies language are types of technical amendments that should have limited consultation. It is appropriate therefore that this new technical variation also is subject to limited consultation with the community and at clause 14 this is required by the bill. In this way the community will be aware of the proposed technical amendment and will have opportunity to make comment on the amendment.
Another type of minor policy amendment is at clause 5. Clause 5 amends the Building (General) Regulation 2008 to provide that a plan is required to be submitted
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