Legal costs are threatening to stymie the ACT’s new planning appeal system which was supposed to be affordable and lawyer-free, according a group of Yarralumla residents. The fear legal costs will prevent them from defending a victory they had last month over a developer who wants to build three units on a site that previously contained one house. The Department of Environment, Land and Planning approved a lease variation to allow the three units and the residents successfully appealed to the Land, Planning and Appeals Board.
The developer has appealed to the Supreme Court on a point of law with the residents and the departmental delegate named as respondents. And a directions hearing is scheduled for today. An appeal is allowed on a point of law. One of the residents, Les Landau, said the government should defend the actions of its appeal board and not leave it to residents who could be up for thousands of dollars to defend their residential amenity. If the government did not defend the board’s decision it would give a message to developers that if they did not like a board decision all they needed to do was appeal to the Supreme Court and the residents would fold because of costs and they would get their way.
Mr Landau said, “”This decision, if not defended could also be embarrassing to the Government as it undermines the whole appeals process which was meant to be affordable to residents.” The developer, Dectase Pty Ltd, says it is appealing because its representatives were not given notice of the inspection of the land by the board and were not present at the inspection to give their point of view. A spokesman for Minister-designate for Planning Gary Humphries said Mr Humphries was concerned about residents having to foot big legal bills. He was still talking with departmental officers last night to see what could be done. Another case against the board has also been brought to the Supreme Court. A decision of the board favourable to the residents about set-back in Forrest was appealed by the department citing the developer and the residents as respondents.
The president of the Save Our Cities Coalition, Jacqui Rees, said there were now two Supreme Court cases where the department had been favouring the developer _ in one actively intervening for the developer and in the other going lame so the residents copped the bill. “”The Liberals should be aware that Labor lost government in Molonglo over this sort of thing,” she said. “”It was a chance to change the culture.”