16 December 2010

Rejoice for the property developers! Freed from the surly bonds of environmental impact!

| johnboy
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Planning Minister Andrew Barr has the thrilling news that he’s cut red tape for property developers so they can build without having to worry as much about environmental impact statements:

The building industry, which is so important for the ACT economy and the jobs of thousands of Canberrans, had told us that too many developments were needlessly requiring an EIS. This had been causing unnecessary delays particularly for infrastructure works in new suburbs.

If we are to keep our economy strong, make housing in Canberra more affordable and keep Canberrans in jobs, we need to ensure that new suburbs are developed in a sustainable way and that land is released as fast as possible. That’s what this new law will help us achieve.

The bill alters Schedule 4 of the Planning and Development Act which lists the types of proposals that require an EIS. The bill removes the EIS trigger in some cases however all proposals are still subject to rigorous environmental assessment as part of the development assessment process. In other cases the EIS trigger has been fine-tuned so an EIS is required only when a significant adverse environmental impact has been identified.

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johnboy’s question on Up or Out has been answered. Out it is.

/me hopes linky works properly. What happened to the “preview” button?

Clown Killer3:27 pm 16 Dec 10

dtc said :

But what about the jobs of EIS providers that will now be lost? wont anyone think of them?

There’ll still be all manner of environmental impact assessment going on, and where necessary, an EIS will still be undertaken. The changes simply remove many of the arbitrary triggers for an EIS.

I doubt that anyone in the environment assessment business is losing any sleep over this.

georgesgenitals11:51 am 16 Dec 10

Development seems to have slowed down a bit in the ACT:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/14/3093180.htm

This might be bad news for those wishing to buy a home.

Unrestrained development brought the need for environmental impact statements to protect the environment. Now its removed to protect unrestrained development. I didn’t know it was in danger. Just looking around Canberra it would seem unrestrained development is flourishing.

I read that this will help sustain and increase profits for building and development companies. We need to protect the “dollar” from the environment to have a healthy city.

Its money in someones pocket.

But what about the jobs of EIS providers that will now be lost? wont anyone think of them?

p1 said :

Think of the money we will save on policing when we get them to only investigate people we already know are guilty of serious crimes!

Because that’s worked so well with CRK.

The Bill itself
Explanatory Statement

Asa bonus, the Land Development amendment is Human Rights Compliant.

“In other cases the EIS trigger has been fine-tuned so an EIS is required only when a significant adverse environmental impact has been identified.”

If I understand correctly, we will only do an assessment of environmental impact, when we already know that there will be a large environmental impact?

Think of the money we will save on policing when we get them to only investigate people we already know are guilty of serious crimes!

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