In the May 2013 edition Clause:1 provided an update on the changes to planning legislation outlined in the Planning and Environment Amendment (General) Act 2013. The Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure (DTPLI) has recently called for comments on the proposed Planning and Environment Amendment Regulations 2013. Most of the proposed Regulations are related to reforms in the General Act that will commence on 28 October 2013. This article summarises the proposed changes to the Regulations which are likely to be of particular interest to BDAV readers.
Proposed Regulation 8 sets out the types of “low impact” planning scheme amendments which the Planning Minister can deal with, without the need to exhibit the amendment or require a panel. The types of amendments include corrections, deleting expired or redundant clauses and removing duplicate clauses, improving language or grammar if the effect the provision is not changed, deleting and Environmental Audit Overlay if a certificate of environmental audit has been issued, among others.
Proposed Regulation 18 seeks to clarify when the 60-day period for a applying for a review (appeal) of a permit condition to VCAT. If Council issued a Notice of Decision to Grant a permit, then the 60-days starts to run from the date the Notice of Decision was given. If no Notice of Decision was required to be given (i.e. no objections to the permit application) then the 60-days starts from the date the permit was issued.
Proposed Regulation 23 sets out new procedures to amend or end a section 173 Agreement, including the information for the applicant or responsible authority to provide. Proposed regulation 26 sets out new procedures for amending or ending a section 173 Agreement by a right of review to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) and sets out the time frames in which an appeal may be lodged.
Section 72 of the Act, which relates to applications to amend existing planning permits, has been amended. Previously a planning permit issued by direction of VCAT could only be amended by VCAT. The changes enable Councils to consider those amendments except where VCAT has specifically decided that the permit (or part of it) can only be amended by VCAT. Regulation 30 amends Form 4 (which sets out the form of a permit granted), the new form enabling information to be included in the permit about whether the permit can be amended by the responsible authority.
The Regulations amend a number of the document templates used regularly in planning matters including: the Notice of Decision to Grant a Permit, the Refusal to Grant a Planning Permit, te Refusal to Grant an Amendment to a Permit and more.