Some of the planning procedures in the ACT were “bordering on the bizarre”, an inquiry into a North Canberra redevelopment proposal has found.
The findings of the inquiry by former Administrative Appeals. Tribunal member Robert Todd were tabled in the Legislative Assembly yesterday. They prompted the Minister for Land, Environment and Planning,
Bill Wood, to confirm a review of some provisions of the Land Act and to improve the consultation process. Mr Todd was commissioned by the Assembly to inquire into difficulties surrounding a redevelopment proposal at Torrens Street, Braddon.
He found that objectors had been given only broad plans early, from which they might have gained the wrong impression, and by the time they had been given detailed plans, it had been too late to object.
The planning system required a three-pronged approach: variation to the Territory Plan; a variation of the development rights contained in the lease and approval of the design and siting. This was “a major problem underlying the administration of a development such as this in the ACT planning and land-management system”.
Mr Todd found there was no real objection to medium-density redevelopment, just concern about what sort it would be. “In relation to residential redevelopment in urban-renewal projects, there should wherever possible be consultation with lessees at the earliest possible stage of planning, as part of the process of planning itself before any kind of decision has been made,” he recommended.
“If the residents had been brought together at an early stage and an attempt made to have them become part of the process, much good might have come out of it. .[TH].[TH]. By bringing them into the planning process much could have been achieved and a better atmosphere created.”
It would also be less costly than a process “bedevilled by objection and protest”. Mr Todd criticised a clause in the lease variation approved by the Assembly that once a proposal that came within the development guidelines it was not open for appeal. He thought it was probably illegal.
He recommended that the section of the Act that permitted such a clause be changed to permit reviews of whether a development fits the guidelines. He condemned the 1991 Land Act’s provisions for lease variations.
Understanding them would stump non-lawyers and many lawyers “might struggle with it for a while”.
Mr Wood noted that the Act was a product of the first Assembly “and bears some of the quirks of that Assembly over 100 amendments were moved in final debate many in handwriting with no input from the draftsperson.” He said the Government was committed to reviewing the Act.
He noted Mr Todd’s view on consultation. The Government and the ACT Planning Authority were refining the consultation process. He promised “to continue to improve our consultation process”. Mr Todd said the terms of his inquiry did not permit him to inquire into or rule on any allegations of impropriety surrounding the development, “whatever the intention of the [Assembly] framers of the motion”.
However, in the course of his inquiry he found no evidence of impropriety. Mr Wood said this outcome might not be the outcome expected by some Members, but the vague nature of the claims put forward in the earlier debate and the fact that Mr Todd had found no evidence of impropriety “suggest that the nature of the inquiry was appropriate”.
The president of the Canberra Conservation Council, Jacqueline Rees, said the inquiry had been a farce. She said it had not dealt with the impropriety allegation, natural justice for residents as against developers or whether the development should have had Better Cities funding.
It had only touched on planning practices, “and then only told Bill Wood what I and others have been telling him for more than six months that some planning practices in Canberra are bizarre”. “How much ratepayers’ money has been spent on telling him what he has already been told again and again?” she said. The redevelopment proposal has been withdrawn and a new one involving six blocks will be re-submitted.