PROPERTY COUNCIL PLANNING REFORM GREEN PAPER SUBMISSION

Last week the Property Council lodged our Planning Reform Green Paper submission to State Government. We welcome the opportunity to comment on and provide feedback to the Government on industry’s perspective of the review outcomes, and consulted widely with our members who will be impacted by these reforms in preparing our submission.

The industry will continue to work with Government and the wider community to get the policy settings and legislative frameworks right, so we can collectively deliver diverse, sustainable and vibrant communities of the future.

The position we take represents our view of how an ideal planning system would operate and is based on the following key goals:

• strong commitment to engage all stakeholders, including the community, in setting planning objectives and determining planning outcomes

• clear guidance, targets and intentions in strategic plans while allowing flexibility in statutory decision-making to adjust to changing circumstances and innovation (so long as engagement, transparency and accountability is upheld)

• clear and consistent land use and development controls that are broad enough to allow responsive proposals and discretionary decisions that are appropriate to context

• risk-based planning approval processes applied across the spectrum of planning instruments

• electronic application lodgement, tracking and notification systems

• an efficient and robust referrals system, with WAPC/DPLH empowered to apply rigour and discretion in its treatment of referral responses

• statutory timeframes for all stages of the planning system, with reporting on performance against these timeframes and consequences for not meeting them

• reasonable and transparent rules for charging infrastructure costs to landowners/developers

To view the submission click here.