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Planning law forges ahead

Wednesday 9 April, 2008 2:00pm

PLANNING Minister Frank Sartor has released a draft exposure bill ushering in the biggest changes to planning laws since the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act of 1979.

The changes reduce council powers over a range of developments by introducing planning assessment panels for projects worth more than $50 million and increasing the role of private certifiers to approve small-scale building works. They also tightly restrict the way councils can spend developer levies.

Some 538 submissions flowed to the Minister's office, with mixed responses from councils and general support from developers.

Feedback from Cumberland Newspapers readers over the plans has been overwhelming with many concerned about the loss of local input into neighbourhood planning.

Reporter Michael Rogers delivered feedback from our readers to Mr Sartor's electorate office.

Hundreds of reader letters expressed concerns that the changes would diminish community and council input into planning decisions. Many agreed that planning laws needed streamlining and that council's could be encouraged to make decisions more efficiently.

Yet few changes were made to the proposals as a result of community feedback.

One concession made was to give residents the right of appeal to a Regional Planning Panel if a council approved a development exceeding planning controls by 25 per cent.

This was described as an "anti-corruption" measure and Mr Sartor said 13 developments approved by the disgraced Wollongong Council would have been captured by these provisions.

Mr Sartor claimed that despite criticism from the Local Government and Shires Association, many councils had supported aspects of the new reforms.

Association president Genia McCaffery rejected this assertion.

"We held a leader's forum with 80 per cent of mayors and local councils represented.

They gave us unanimous support to fight the changes," she said.

Cr McCaffery described the changes as the deregulation of planning in NSW and said they suited developers not residents.

Mr Sartor said the laws would build an efficient and robust planning system for the 21st century.

"Where a very simple plan can now take two to three years, in future it will take several months," he said. "Arbitration will give mums and dads a low-cost way of having applications reviewed if not dealt with in reasonable times."

The bill will be debated in Parliament next month when the government will release the first of many uniform development codes for smaller projects.

Developer contributions will be governed by four principles; housing affordability, a strict time frame for use, a balance between the needs of new and existing residents and cost.

Councils had expressed fears their ability to responsibly pool levies to build big community projects could be lost.

Mr Sartor said councils could levy for "key community infrastructure" and following consultation with stakeholders, could levy for infrastructure outside the criteria if justified according to "strict tests."