7 February 2009

Planning restrictions lift - start your engines boys

| johnboy
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Just in case you hadn’t hauled in what an environmental dark age the “GFC” was going to usher in Andrew Barr has announced that he’s going to make it easier for Canberras dodgy builders to do whatever the hell they like:

    “These further improvements to planning approval processes are a direct result of ACTPLAn, an initiative developed in response to issues raised at last year’s building roundtable. A key outcome of the roundtable was the establishment of the Industry Monitoring Group, designed to ensure the ACT Planning and Land Authority (ACTPLA) works more closely with the building industry to tackle to local impacts of the global financial crisis,” Mr Barr said.

    The key actions of ACTPLAn are:

    1. Immediately re-deploying senior ACTPLA staff to clear backlogs of Development Applications when they occur

    2. Assigning expert staff to ACTPLA’s shopfronts to help people lodge their applications

    3. Allowing more flexible assessment and approval of run-of-the-mill applications such as those for roof colours and the installation of flagpoles and

    4. Making changes to the Territory Plan that will see around 30 per cent of single dwelling Development Applications more quickly assessed without sacrificing planning standards.

    “ACTPLA has moved swiftly to implement these measures, with the fourth effective from today. The new technical variation to the Territory Plan means that for new single dwellings, people need only seek referrals from utilities such as ACTEW before building starts. Previously applicants needed to seek these referrals both at the building approval stage and the development application stage.

But y’know. Keeps blokes in utes off the streets.

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3. Allowing more flexible assessment and approval of run-of-the-mill applications such as those for roof colours and the installation of flagpoles…

Flagpole led recovery!

jerish said :

Looks like the ALP is cherry picking the best policy ideas and claiming them as thier own!

… Ummm, good. Well perhaps not the ‘claiming them as their own’ part, but sometimes the best governments are the ones who can recognised good ideas proposed by others. In this sense ACT Labour have been doing a much better job than their federal counterparts.

Canberra’s builders aren’t dodgy, but a few of them don’t seem to know what they’re doing. but at the end of the day it’s the owners fault if they’re stupid enough to build a second story using bluesheet.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy2:17 pm 07 Feb 09

Planning and development approval is a joke in this town, with plans approved or rejected based on which particular idiot assesses your application, and how they feel on the day. Oh, it also takes AGES.

Just getting the process sorted into a disciplined workflow would be an achievement (that ACTPLA probably isn’t capable of).

Barr is really taking the bull by the horns – making it easier to put in flag poles… what a joke. And wasnt all of this promised in the election from either CAP or the Libs? Looks like the ALP is cherry picking the best policy ideas and claiming them as thier own!

Holden Caulfield10:17 am 07 Feb 09

Good time to be planning an extension to our house by the looks, haha!

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