One Central Coast Council staff member has 11 development applications (DAs) in the Land and Environment Court, it was revealed at a recent public hearing on planning issues.
The staff member was one of two council employees who addressed the State Parliament’s inquiry into the NSW planning system’s ability to cope with the impacts of climate change on the environment and communities.
The employee was asked to take on notice how many matters he actually had before the Land and Environment Court on the “deemed refusal” provision.
The staffer said he would give the enquiry actual numbers for the whole of the council.
He also suggested the inquiry contact the court to see how many current cases were “deemed refusals”.
He said deemed refusals sucked away all the resources from all the other applications “because the council gets given a very short amount of time to write the set of contentions, two to three weeks” before it came before the court.
Inquiry member Scott Farlow asked if that meant that particular development application then went to the top of the pile effectively leading to more deemed refusals in the process.
The staffer agreed.
“The cycle continues,” he said.
Earlier he had explained deemed refusals.
“As soon as 40 days are up, an applicant can go to the court and say, ‘Well, the council hasn’t looked at my DA yet’,” he said.
“That’s between 40 days and six months.
“I think the issue that I’ve seen with that is the court is also very willing to accept amendments to applications, so I’ve had things that are up to version 9 after it was submitted in the court,” he said.
“Essentially the applicants are using the council’s experts as a way of getting their application to be up to scratch rather than doing the homework and the legwork themselves.”
The second council staffer said that the court should only be allowed to consider what was submitted.
“Really, to get a fair procedural system, the court should only really be allowed to consider what was submitted and what the application contained,” she said.
“Staff aren’t given enough time because, you’re getting these amendments through the legal process.”
She said the staff had “insignificant” time to actually review it.
“They do the best that they can. But it’s not fair on council staff either to be reviewing it through that process,” she said.
The first council staffer offered a recent example.
“We’d written a joint expert report, which is the sort of thing that the experts write beforehand, that was submitted,” he said.
“There were issues with the application that both myself and my counterpart agreed to.
“On the Friday before the hearing (on the Monday) the applicant went to seek leave for a whole new suite of documents and we were directed to write the joint expert report due basically on the day we were going to be cross-examined on that.
“So the barrister for that received that joint expert report two hours before I was due in the witness box.
“Is that a fair procedural thing,” he asked.
The committee came to the Coast on April 10 and heard from council staff as well as community members from Avoca, from Woy Woy Peninsula group Grow Urban Shade Trees and from the Woy Woy Peninsula Residents Association.
It also held a private meeting with members of the Wamberal Save Our Sand community group.
The inquiry will report on how the planning system can best ensure that people and the natural and built environment are protected from climate change impacts and changing landscapes.
In particular it is looking at developments proposed or approved:
(i) in flood and fire prone areas or areas that have become more exposed to natural disasters as a result of climate change,
(ii) in areas that are vulnerable to rising sea levels, coastal erosion or drought conditions as a result of climate change, and
(iii) in areas that are threatened ecological communities or habitat for threatened species.
It is looking at the powers of councils to review, amend or revoke development approvals, and reforms that may be necessary.
Council’s official responses to questions on notice from the Gosford hearing are not yet public.
Photo: Inquiry Chair, Sue Higginson at the Central Coast Leagues Club where the public hearing was held.
