The ACT Greens will today table a bill to improve Planning and Development notifications, appeals and reviews.

“This Bill has three main parts, improving notification of development proposals, fixing the process of reconsideration of proposals, and giving greater standing for people to appeal development decisions,” Greens Planning spokesperson Caroline Le Couteur said today.

“My Bill removes a current loophole in the Act. Currently, if ACTPLA fails to correctly follow the public notification requirements and notify the full information for a merit or impact track DA, this does not affect the validity of the DA.”

In a recent case in Latham, the DA was put out for public notification, but only contained a lease variation proposal. The actual demolition and development proposal was omitted completely from public notification. Despite this, ACTPLA permitted a decision on the whole proposal.

Key points of the Planning and Development (Notifications and Review) Amendment Bill 2009 in relation to development applications:
•  it ensures that the ACTPLA undertakes full public notification with the full information available at the outset on all merit and impact track DAs;
•  it allows ACTPLA and ACAT to consider a broader range of issues when reviewing DA decisions, such as Territory Plan Zoning and Objectives, as well as the Territory Plan Rules; and
•  it increases standing for community members to appeal DA decisions.

“It’s important that reconsideration of decisions – either by ACTPLA or ACAT, allows Territory plan zoning and Objectives, not just Rules, to be examined.”

“Only allowing ACTPLA and ACAT to look at detailed aspects without being able to consider the overall intent of the Territory Plan means that many of the important principles within the Territory Plan are wasted.”

“The Government says that opening up appeal rights to the broader community will lead to ACAT being flooded with a deluge of appeals, but the evidence does not bear this out.”

“The NSW Government has broader planning appeal rights, and Justice Peter McClellan, Chief Judge at common law, NSW Supreme Court, says that it has not created such problems, and in fact leads to better decisions overall,” Ms Le Couteur said.

In calling in the Cotter Dam Development Application, Mr Barr has poured a large bucket of cold water on his own independent statutory authority, and has thrown in a massive dose of ‘politics into planning’.

“The Minister must explain why he has called in this project. Is it because he doesn’t trust ACTPLA to make the assessment? Does Mr Barr suddenly think that he has better skills to make a decision on the environmental impacts of such a large proposal?” Shane Rattenbury, ACT Greens Environment spokesperson said today.

“The Minister claims he has done this to ‘keep the politics out of planning’. The problem is no one knows what the ‘politics’ is. What exactly is the ‘politics’ of the Cotter Development?”

The Greens would like to see call-ins become disallowable, instead of decisions on such large projects of benefit to the community being put in the hands of just one politician.

“This is the first proposal to properly use the full EIS process under the new Planning and Development Act, yet the Minister has already decided that he knows better.”

“It is time for the Environment Department to be involved in environmental planning decisions. Environmental impact assessments should be put out of reach of the Planning Minister.”

“It is unclear what advice has led Mr Barr to this decision, but he should be clear about his rationale.”

“To make matters worse, Mr Barr is also undermining the credibility of ACTEW, who have put extensive effort into addressing the environmental concerns at the Cotter Dam expansion. This project should be subject to full public scrutiny of the standard planning processes.”

“The Minister constantly claims he wants to ‘take the politics out of planning’. Based on Mr Barr’s actions this year, this statement is increasingly wrong:

Minister Barr (re Telopea Park School – 10 Feb 2009): “I would indicate to Ms Hunter and to the Assembly that, as planning minister, I have never used the call-in powers… as a fundamental principle, I reject the notion of politics getting into planning.”

Minister Barr (re Hospital Car park call in – 29 May 2009): “I have decided to call-in the applications and consider them myself in order to keep politics out of planning.”

“When it comes to politics in planning, Mr Barr is undoubtedly the champion.” Mr Rattenbury said.

ACT Greens Planning Spokesperson, Caroline Le Couteur MLA today announced that the Greens will support the Government’s Planning Regulation to expedite the approval process for Federal Stimulus Package social housing projects.

“The ACT Greens welcome this immediate and substantial investment in much-needed social housing across Canberra.” Ms Le Couteur said today.

“But we are concerned that existing ACT planning processes have been compromised due to the Rudd Government’s haste to get building started.”

“This rushed timeframe suggests that this Stimulus Package is also a Rudd Government re-election package. That explains why most of the housing has to be completed by the end of next year.”

“It is particularly troubling that the package is structured so that a delay in any component can put other components at risk.”

“The Rudd government is holding the states and territories over a barrel by imposing restrictive timelines, with the result that third party appeal rights will not apply to any of these projects.”

“The Greens proposed a more streamlined objection process to the ACT Government earlier in the year, but not enough progress was made on that proposal and – to be blunt – we have now run out of time.”

“This social housing investment is a vital one off opportunity which we can’t afford to put at risk.”

Neighbours of proposed developments will still be notified of the proposal and will be able to comment as normal. However they will not be able to appeal ACTPLA’s decision in the Administrative Civil Appeals Tribunal.

“We have ensured ACTPLA’s internal review panel will include an external social planner to provide better oversight of the potential physical and social impact of these developments.” Ms Le Couteur said.

“All developments will still have to conform to the Territory Plan. At the end of the day, it is the ACT government which will be held to account in regards to the quality of these developments.”

ACT Greens MLA Deb Foskey expressed her delight with today’s announcement that ACTPLA will require a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of ActewAGL’s gas fired power plant and data centre proposal.

“In May when the community was confronted by the original larger project, I called for the ACT Government to commit to a full EIS but it refused” Dr Foskey said today.

“Three months have gone by. The proposal has been downscaled and revamped, and now an EIS has been called for.”

“I’d like to congratulate ACTPLA and the Minister on taking the right steps eventually. But Government Ministers could have taken a more proactive approach on this front and committed to an EIS at a much earlier stage, since there were clearly significant environmental concerns”

“While the EIS has been called for at the allotted time in the established DA process, it was obvious it was needed back in May. The Planning Minister could have called for it then, thus reducing the potential for delay while the EIS was prepared.”

“I think ActewAGL will be distressed that the EIS is only being triggered now since the LAST thing they wanted was a delay. Perhaps in future it would serve them better to pay attention to the Greens rather than the Government when environmental impact needs to be assessed”

“I congratulate the local residents of Macarthur and Fadden for their work on raising issues of concern to them and the wider ACT community, and appreciate that Health Minister Katy Gallagher took her health portfolio seriously and showed leadership in Government.”

“All major projects need to be properly assessed in terms of health, environmental and social impact; and it is never adequate where that assessment is done by the project’s proponent,” Dr Foskey said.