Representatives of the Combined Community Councils met on Wednesday 18 March to be briefed by the Greens on proposed amendments to ACT Planning Laws. Caroline Le Couteur MLA, explained the ACT Greens’ Bill to improve planning and development notifications, appeals and reviews in the ACT. Amongst other things, the Bill inserts a standard to ensure public notification requirements of a development application are correctly followed. The Bill also aims to broaden the existing appeal rights to be similar to those in NSW.
Motion of the Combined Community Councils’ Public Meeting held on 18 March 2010
Representatives of the Community Councils of Belconnen, Gungahlin, North Canberra, Tuggeranong, Weston Creek and the Woden Valley, at a public meeting held on Thursday, 18 March 2010 to consider the Planning and Development (Notifications and Review) Amendment Bill 2009, adopted the following motion—
We strongly support the provisions in the Bill that inserts in the Planning and Development Act 2007 a requirement whereby the validity of a development application will be affected if the notification requirements are not met or the full information for a merit or impact track development application has not been provided;
We strongly support the provisions in the Bill to broaden the range of issues to include the overall intent of the Territory Plan that can be considered by ACTPLA when reconsidering its decision on a development application and by ACAT when reviewing a decision by ACTPLA; and
We strongly support the provisions in the Bill to broaden appeal rights.