Community planning services in Glenelg Shire Council : 1998-2005 ...

66 Did the council comply with key legislative, planning scheme and other requirements?
At this same meeting, the planning contractor canvassed a proposal
whereby plans submitted with permit applications could be used as a
substitute for a development plan. This would avoid some of the costs
associated with the council establishing a development plan.
Annual budget submissions for the planning function, prepared by the
planning contractor, requested additional funding for the preparation of
development plans.
A number of meetings between the Department of Infrastructure (when
that department had responsibility for the planning function) and the
council considered this issue and recommended amending the planning
scheme to abolish the DPOs.
The need to correct the “inadequacies in the planning scheme” with
regards to development plans was raised in VCAT planning application
hearings, as far back as 2001.
In February 2002, the council exhibited an amendment to its planning
scheme 27 that included the removal of all development plan overlays. The
documentation supporting the amendment contended that the DPOs are
“… an unnecessary duplication of controls contained elsewhere in the
planning scheme”.
As there were objections to the amendment, the council decided to split the
amendment into parts – adopt one part (without submissions) and refer
the submissions related to part 2 to an independent panel (appointed by
the minister) for review. This is in accordance with the Act.
We were advised that this review process was not undertaken.
As the council had not established development plans for its DPOs, the
council’s planning contractor was faced with the prospect of rejecting all
planning permit applications in areas covered by the DPOs. This would
have had a significant adverse impact on the shire’s development activity.
In these circumstances, the planning contractor, acting as the council’s
delegate, decided to use the project/site plans provided with planning
applications as a substitute for a development plan. The planning
contractor considered that this enabled him to continue processing and
issuing planning permits in areas covered by DPOs.
27 Amendment C5 relates to errors and inconsistencies in the scheme, minor re-zoning and
implementation of planning-related matters. We discuss this further in Part 4 of this report.