Development And Planning Amendment Act 2024

“I will table the Development and Planning Amendment Act 2024,” Minister of Cabinet Office Vance Campbell said in the House of Assembly on Friday, adding that ”this Act will amend the Development and Planning Act 1974, thereby, affording the Development Applications Board discretion to approve retroactive development applications that presently must be refused and considered by the Minister via appeal.”

The Minister’s full statement follows below:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform this Honourable House that, later today, I will table the Development and Planning Amendment Act 2024.

Mr. Speaker, this Act will amend the Development and Planning Act 1974, thereby, affording the Development Applications Board discretion to approve retroactive development applications that presently must be refused and considered by the Minister via appeal.

Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members will be aware that I advised this Honourable House of this amendment in my Ministerial Statement delivered on June 14, 2024. Underpinning my message on that day was an acknowledgement that the Government understood the frustrations that people experienced when interacting with the Department of Planning and that there was clear recognition of the need for improvements to be made. In doing so, the Government is desirous to improve procedures that will result in more efficient decision making and overall unburden the process.

Mr. Speaker, in 2018, amendments were made to the Act to provide stronger enforcement powers to address unauthorized development. These amendments introduced provisions for the Director of Planning to issue Contravention Notices and Civil Penalties and took away discretion from the Board to approve retroactive planning applications.

In particular, the 2018 amendments added sections 20 [2A], [2B] and [2C] to the Act, which have effectively required the Board to refuse in excess of 90% of retroactive planning applications. However, most of these cases fully conform to the policies of the relevant development plan.

Mr. Speaker, these 2018 amendments, originally intended to strengthen enforcement, have resulted in added frustration for the public regarding Planning processes. We accept this, and, are prepared to make the necessary changes.

Mr. Speaker, it is agreed that a penalty should be applied to those who purposely disregard planning legislation. However, the current legislative framework equally punishes those who blatantly ignore planning legislation as well as those who have carried out minor development without generally realizing planning permission was required. The current framework also places a significant burden on technical officers and the Development Applications Board in respect of the time taken to process such applications and the subsequent appeal.

To address these concerns, the amendment seeks to return the decision-making authority to the Development Applications Board for retroactive applications. This would reduce the 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.

Mr. Speaker, removing these measures through a further amendment will not dilute the outcome for enforcement. The imposition of Civil Penalties run concurrently to a planning application process and effectively achieve the desired outcome of penalizing those that knowingly breach planning control and further measures, such as enforcement notices, are available to remedy harm which has been caused by unlawful development.

Mr. Speaker, this proposed amendment to the Act represents the realization of one of the measures we promised to continue the overarching aim of bringing greater efficiency to the Department of Planning’s processes and service delivery to the public.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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