Bulletin (PDF 18.3 MB) - City of Armadale

Information BulletinInformation Items from the Development Services DirectoratePageD-2INFORMATION ITEM – COMMENTS ON ASPECTS OF THE APPROVALS ANDRELATED REFORMS (PLANNING) ACTBy Ian MacRae, Executive Director Development Services, City of ArmadaleThere have been some important changes to legislation and regulations over recent years – notablythe ability of Local Governments to commence amendments without WAPC approval and theelimination of the Ministerial appeal system. But the major elements of the Approvals Act areentirely negative and without justification.I will describe two of the elements - DAPs and Ministerial powers to require scheme amendments.Development Assessment Panels (DAPs)From the beginning, at the initial September 2009 Discussion Paper release of the concept of DAPs,it was obvious that it hadn’t been thought through.All the touted benefits were not benefits at all – most Councils pulled the proposal apart in theirsubmissions. It is a mystery how the Department of Planning came up with such a half-baked andunworkable idea without any sensible person casting their eyes over it before it was released. It iseven more mysterious why they are still going ahead with it.Usually submissions made by Councils and WALGA are quite polite. But not with this. Thenormally polite WALGA included the following adjectives in its submission: “naïve”,“misconceived”, “ignorant”, “unworkable”, “unacceptable”, “incongruent”, “meaningless”,“misguided” and “simply preposterous”.The Report on Submissions and the Minister’s Policy Statement released in April 2010 respondedto a degree by agreeing to increase the financial thresholds, and reduce the extent to which theadministration and costs would just be dumped on local government – but they are still going aheadwith it.To recap - The Discussion Paper blandly advocated DAPs as a solution to a host of imagined issueswith planning approvals. This was summarised under the heading “Benefits of DAPs”.• Timeliness – DAPs would in fact be quite likely to result in delays – but in any event as weall know the main delays are due to slow responses from state government agencies – butthe review of submissions washed its hands of this stating, “it is not within the scope of thisproject to amend referral agency timelines.” In any event a DAP will not be able to matchthe timeliness of Council decisions made under delegated authority.• Efficiency – Which ever way you look at it DAPs will introduce an additional processwhich will be costly to service, it cannot be more efficient. The development industry is yetto be informed of how much extra they will have to pay for the dubious pleasure of going toa DAP – if costs are to be covered it will have to be significant. The set-up and support of atleast 15 Panels to deal with the latest DoP estimated 140 applications a year (ie 9 each) willbe messy, costly and inefficient.