Data centre now moving

I think if you told the neighbour you were building the extension over the road, but actually it was up to their back fence, you’d be off to a bad start.

Actually Deezagood, if you follow my logic you would undergo an established planning process to put an extension on your house (get the plans drafted, put the application in to ACTPLA) and ACTPLA would ask for more information and provide detailed criteria on how to assess and present that information. You’d be pretty certain that the extension will go ahead because in your preparations you had everything checked out properly and ACTPLA didn’t ask for anything new, just for the information to be presented in a diferent sort of document, you do all that and while ACTPLA is considering the stuff you’ve provided you find that the government is going to introduce special regulations that only apply to you, specifically to stop you building your extension. If I were you I’d be looking for compensation?

It’s interesting that following an established planning process is somehow considered to be ‘taking a risk’ – it could only happen in Canberra.

Fact is that much about DAs is a risk. There are 3 ways to approach your development idea:

Code Track: If you can comply with the various criteria, then it is as of right – can’t be knocked back and there is no risk at all. In fact, new residential applications in greenfield areas that meet Code don’t even have to go to ACTPLA – they are termed Exempt developments.

Merit Track: you use this one if some aspects of your proposal do not meet the strict letter of the code track criteria. ACTPLA assesses these aspects as to whether they meet the related performance goals, which are more text-based than number-based, if you get my drift. But they can’t refuse an application if any undesirable merit aspects can be conditioned to mitigate problems, and the Code aspects are un-assessable. For example, I got a relaxation on the length of courtyard wall and one setback, but everything else about my house met Code.

Impact Assessment: this is different. It allows for unusual proposals that *MAY* be acceptable, but this is no given as the sorts of applications that fall into this track are likely to be contentious – the exact reason they are impact Assessment. And impact assessment by its nature implies a distinct possibility that an EIS may be required. In fact the lack of EISs in ACT is quite surprising – they are very common requirements elsewhere in Australia.

Clown Killer said :

It’s interesting that following an established planning process is somehow considered to be ‘taking a risk’ – it could only happen in Canberra.

Any project you undertake involves some degree of risk. There was obvious risks with this one which weren’t managed well. It’s not a Canberra thing.

Clown Killer said :

It’s interesting that following an established planning process is somehow considered to be ‘taking a risk’ – it could only happen in Canberra.

Sure if they jumpoed through all the hoops and the environmental impacts just diddn’t stack up you could argue that it was tough luck and they should have thought about it a bit harder. But when you’ve got project that meets all required environmental thresholds that gets the kybosh because a few noisy residents get uppity and schemeing politicians see a vote in it then it’s going to get ugly.

So clown killer, if I follow an established planning process to put an extension on my house (get the plans drafted, put the application in to ACTPLA) and my proposal is rejected by ACTPLA (based on my neighbors objections) – then by your logic, I should be compensated? Ummm – okay ….

That would be an ok comment but for the fact that MacKay wrote to CMD and asked the CM to tell the LDA to give the ACTEW/TRE consortium a certain block of land (not the one they ended up with, by the way). That’s not really an established planning process.

Asking for a last-minue EIS to placate the masses – established planning processes under both the old and new planning acts.

Not awarding a lease on a block – still established planning.

The big mistake was:
a) ACTEW thinking it can get whatever it wants and pay only minimal lipservice to statutory planning and development requirements
b) persons mislead the assembly and thinking they can get away with it when it all blows up
c) doing both of the above just before an election (rather than in 2006, when they could do whatever they wanted)
d) spending $3 million without the required variation to the Territory Plan or even a signed off lease to the block.

All that said, TRE probably would have a right to compensation for the EIS costs if the decision not to proceed on that bloack is made before the EIS is published.

The rest was all a risk.

I hope TRE didn’t get this by competetive tender. i don;t think they feel like they ‘won’ any more.

It’s interesting that following an established planning process is somehow considered to be ‘taking a risk’ – it could only happen in Canberra.

Sure if they jumpoed through all the hoops and the environmental impacts just diddn’t stack up you could argue that it was tough luck and they should have thought about it a bit harder. But when you’ve got project that meets all required environmental thresholds that gets the kybosh because a few noisy residents get uppity and schemeing politicians see a vote in it then it’s going to get ugly.

Compensated? They took a risk and poured money into a project that was clearly going to be controversial and it didn’t work. Suck it up and move on.

Now TRE are apparently saying they should be compensated for their troubles.

It just gets better and better…

Unless you work somewhere that gives you access.