Page 937 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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development are assessed in the exact same way as they currently are. However—and here is the key protection for the community in allowing these planning processes to be run concurrently—a concurrent DA cannot be approved by me as the Minister for Planning and Land Management or by the planning and land authority unless the concurrent process is completed. For a concurrent DA that is associated with a draft territory plan variation, this means when the territory plan variation has commenced under section 83 or 84 of the Planning Act. For a concurrent DA that is associated with an environmental impact assessment—be it an application to use a prior study or a full environmental impact statement of the proposal—the application is approved or the environmental assessment is completed under section 209 of the Planning Act.
The bill streamlines certain planning and development approval processes by allowing these processes to occur concurrently. Presently, the Planning Act treats each planning process as an individual process that is dealt with in isolation of any other process. For example, if a proponent wanted to progress a certain type of development but the territory plan would need to be varied to allow the development, the territory plan would have to be varied first. This process can take a considerable period of time. If the proposed development triggers schedule 4 of the act, an environmental assessment is required. If there is no prior suitable environmental study, a full draft environmental assessment process must be conducted. This, again, can take considerable time. If a proposal requires both a variation to the territory plan and an environmental assessment, these things must currently be finished sequentially: first the territory plan is varied then the draft environmental assessment is started.
It is easy to see here that years may pass from when the proponent first starts the planning process and the community becomes aware of the proposed changes—but only one piece at a time—and the development is commenced. Needless to say, the completion of the development is, or so it may seem to the proponent and the community, at some distant point in the future. Will anyone other than the proponent remember when it all started? Is the composition of the community still the same? Will new neighbours want to be consulted again? Each of these planning processes has common elements, and each requires notification.
At present, public notification of each process occurs separately, even though they all relate to an end development proposal. Each requires entity referrals, and the same referral entities are notified for a draft territory plan variation or a draft EIS or an application to use a prior environmental study or the DA itself. Each process allows the community to make comment but, again, on only one piece of the planning process at any one time.
By bringing these common administrative processes together, the bill provides an opportunity for a reduction in red tape and improved efficiency. There are further benefits that are broader than pure administrative efficiency. Bringing together the notification requirements of a number of processes as a single notification will give the community a holistic package of planning information to consider and comment on. As an example, let me focus here on a draft territory plan variation. One of the common concerns of the community, when a draft territory plan variation is proposed, is trying to envisage just what the variation will mean on the ground.
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