Advocacy in Action: Planning for school sites submission

WA’s development industry has raised strong concerns about the excessive impost on landowners in a Property Council submission responding to a draft planning policy to guide the delivery of new schools.

In a submission to the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage last week, Property Council WA highlighted a range of improvements that could be made to balance the responsibility of delivering new schools and provide clearer guidelines for inner city school planning.

In particular, the submission focused on:

• The interaction between the draft policy and existing planning rules
• The combined impost of the draft policy and other requirements on landowners and developers
• The timing of land acquisition and control by the Department of Education
• Vegetation and environmental considerations
• Roads and transport requirements
• Planning guidelines for new schools in the inner city or where land isn’t available
• Challenges with planning for non-government schools
• Adaptive re-use measures

The submission was developed in close consultation with Property Council members in the planning and development space. Members also flagged concerns they had during the most recent round of committee meetings.

Although it was acknowledged that the development industry had a role to play in assisting governments to provide suitable sites for schools, requirements to deliver site works on top of ceding land and school specific financial contributions were noted in addition to other Developer Contribution and Cash-In-Lieu obligations.

Click the link below to download our submission to the review. Further feedback can be directed to Nick Warland, WA Policy Advisor, via email.