Legislation to extend the powers of the Development Applications Board to approve retroactive applications was tabled in the House of Assembly on Friday.

The Development and Planning Amendment Act 2024 would modify the Development and Planning Act 1974 to allow the board to make the decisions rather than an appeal process supervised by the Minister of Home Affairs.

Vance Campbell, the Minister of the Cabinet Office, told MPs that the Government “understood the frustrations that people experienced when interacting with the Department of Planning” and recognised the need for improvements.

He pledged a move to “improve procedures that will result in more efficient decision-making” and “unburden the process” overall.

Mr Campbell said that in 2018 amendments were made to the 1974 Act “to provide stronger enforcement powers to address unauthorised development”.

These introduced provisions for the planning director to issue contravention notices and civil penalties, and took away discretion from the board to give the green light to retroactive planning applications.

However, he said, the amendments also meant that the board refused in excess of 90 per cent of them, even though “most of these cases fully conform to the policies of the relevant development plan”.

Mr Campbell said that a move originally intended to strengthen enforcement had brought “added frustration for the public”.

“We accept this, and are prepared to make the necessary changes.”

He said penalties should apply to “those who purposely disregard” the rules, but that the present framework “equally punishes those who blatantly ignore planning legislation as well as those who have carried out minor development without generally realising planning permission was required”.

He said that it placed “a significant burden on technical officers and the Development Applications Board” to deal with applications and the subsequent appeals.

Proposed changes would cut “bureaucracy associated with the additional step for applicants having to appeal a refused retroactive planning application to the minister responsible for planning, resulting in significant improvements in efficiency”.

MPs heard that the amendments “will not dilute the outcome for enforcement”.

Mr Campbell said that civil penalties would “effectively achieve the desired outcome of penalising those that knowingly breach planning control”.

He added: “Further measures, such as enforcement notices, are available to remedy harm which has been caused by unlawful development.”

Download PDF File

DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING AMENDMENT ACT 2024.pdf

• To read the legislation, see Related Media