Assessing Environmental Impact

Assessing Environmental Impact The Property Council’s Planning Committee and Economic and Employment Lands Committee recently received a briefing on the progress of the Strategic Assessment of the Perth and Peel Regions. The strategic assessments, if appropriately delivered, are proposed to increase certainty for the development industry by changing the way environmental impacts of development are assessed. Click here for a copy of the presentation.Strategic assessments under the EPBC Act encourage a bigger picture approach to assess how biodiversity, environmental and heritage values that are MNES can be protected, while allowing sustainable development. This is achieved through addressing a number of individual actions or a class of actions, by several proponents, on a regional scale that would otherwise be assessed on a project-by-project basis.As well as helping to protect Australia’s unique biodiversity, this type of assessment is proposed to provide also benefits developers by cutting red tape and providing long-term certainty.The Strategic Assessment will assess the impact on the future development proposed under state land use planning documents on matters of national environmental significance listed under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The purpose of the Strategic Assessment is to:significantly reduce the need for project by project assessment under the EPBC Act in the Perth and Peel regiondeliver an effective long term and strategic response to key environmental issues in the Perth and Peel region, for example, Carnaby’s Cockatoo and water quality in the Peel-Harvey estuaryprovide greater certainty to industry as to which areas can be developed and what the obligations will be in terms of mitigation, including environmental offsetsprovide greater certainty in terms of long term land supply to meet the needs of a city of 3.5 million.The Strategic Assessment will not just consider the environmental impacts of future urban development, but also the industrial land, transport, infrastructure corridors and future basic raw material extraction required to support future development.The Property Council will be providing updates on the Strategic Assessments as they become available and for further information please visit the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s website: https://www.dpc.wa.gov.au/Consultation/StrategicAssessment/Pages/Default.aspx