While developers are hailing Western Australia’s new development assessment panels as vital reform, the City of Perth is crying “power grab”.
Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi is accusing the state government of usurping the powers of local government after it proposed state assessment for all infrastructure and development projects valued more than $2 million.
The discussion paper by planning minister John Day also suggests state development assessment panels should judge commercial, retail and infrastructure projects valued as low as $1 million.
The document virtually leaves the City of Perth with “the authority to determine applications for carports, shade sails, outboadings and sheds”, Scaffidi claims.
“While a reduction in red tape for approval processes is always welcome, it also needs to be balanced against local governments having a key role to play in the way development occurs within their boundaries,” she said.
However, the WA arm of the Property Council of Australia has welcomed the move as the “most important reform” to state planning in many decades.
The development assessment panels will help to remove the politics from planning, WA executive director of the Property Council, Joe Lenzo, said.
“The expert panels will determine development applications according to their merits and how they measure up to planning policies. Unfortunately too many development applications today end up in the State Administrative Tribunal because of the difficult approvals processes in some local governments,” he said.
Expert panels are also better equipped with the technical expertise to determine complex development applications, Lenzo said.
“The reform of the development assessment process comes at exactly the right time as WA is gearing up for more infrastructure projects and developments associated with the resources sector. This will enable WA to avoid the approvals blockages that frustrated state development in the boom years,” he said.
