A Strategic Approach to the Caravan and Camping Industry 2012

Regulatory and Other Issues
A number of complex regulatory issues concern the development (or lack of
development) of tourist caravan and camping facilities. They include restrictive
planning policy, which prevents development of facilities at locations where
developers are prepared to build caravan and camping facilities, and the approvals
process (“red tape”) where multiple agencies are referred, causing untenable delays
and adding to cost.
The Government of Western Australia has overarching state planning legislation,
which is administered by local government. The Productivity Commission’s recent
study into Planning, Zoning and Development Assessment highlighted a number of
differences in state based legislation along with the variances in local government
processes for dealing with planning and zoning. It also looked at the possibility of
benchmarking performances across all local governments.
The Productivity Commission identified that “the regulations and agencies involved in
planning, zoning and development assessments constitute one of the most complex
regulatory regimes operating in Australia.” 55
The State Planning Act generally dictates planning requirements as well as the
planning policies and processes to be followed by local government to process
applications.
So while State government legislation sets the broad framework for planning and
decision-making, local governments carry out the day to day decision making in
planning.
Local Government has some ability to tailor local planning schemes to meet specific
local conditions through the implementation of local zoning controls. State planning
policy guides planning schemes and must be taken into consideration by planning
officers when making decisions.
The priority afforded to various pieces of legislation and policy stands in the way of
investors and developers being able to rely on the specific caravan and camping
legislation. There are conflicts between the Caravan Parks and Camping Grounds Act
1995 and planning, conservation and building legislation.
Many local government local planning schemes provide barriers to the development
of caravan parks and are a disincentive to the development of caravan and camping
facilities through zoning and other provisions.
A strong message from the consultation is that the approvals process needs to be
simplified, preferably under specific caravan and camping development panels, which
would have sufficient powers to call state government agencies to account and
overcome the delay and cost of the current approvals system.
Approvals processes are also stifling further development of existing facilities.
According to Aspen Group, which is stated to be the largest caravan park
owner/operator in Australia, the barriers to new park development and
redevelopment of their properties in Western Australia over as long as fifteen years
has caused them to shift their development focus to the eastern states.
Aspen cites major issues concerning planning approvals, legislation and policy and also
inaction by government agencies as the reason that they have resolved to defer
development of caravan parks in Western Australia and concentrate on developments
in the eastern states.
The lack of available and suitable, low cost land for caravan parks results in land
speculation. Developers now often consider the prospect of land banking in the
feasibility analysis of caravan park developments on approved land. The issues
associated with investors developing caravan parks based on potential future
conversion to higher use are:
The operational priority is not focussed on service delivery and;
The caravan park will be eventually lost to alternative use.
Availability of low cost, well located land is the key issue for caravan park
development. The return on investment for caravan parks is diminished if suitable
land is quarantined from caravan park development through planning policy.
Often caravan parks are a permitted use only in tourist zones, which means that
caravan park developers compete with higher use developers for the same scarce
land. Rural, residential and industrial or commercial land is often not available to
caravan park developers despite its acceptability and suitability to the market.
55 CIAWA - Caravan Parks Proprietors Survey, 2011 - Unpublished
A Strategic Approach to Caravan and Camping Tourism in Western Australia Page 48