Expert Evidence in the Environment, Resources and Development Court

The Environment, Resources and Development (ERD) Court was established to deal with planning, building, heritage and environmental protection matters. The Court is required to base its decision on the provisions contained in the Development Plan that applies to the proposed development.

Applicants have the right of appeal to the ERD Court for all development applications, except proposals for non-complying development in most circumstances. Third parties who are dissatisfied with a decision regarding any Category 3 form of development (including non-complying development) may also appeal to the ERD Court.

The URPS team has considerable experience in providing expert evidence in the ERD Court on a range of planning appeals, on behalf of both councils and the private sector. This has included appeals regarding multi-storey aged care facilities, the subdivision of rural land, industrial development, and housing and commercial developments. It also includes the consideration of associated planning issues such as overshadowing, overlooking, noise impact, significant trees, and land productivity.

We also provide professional support to appellants during the compulsory conference process in the ERD Court, where the Court seeks to broker a compromise between parties to avoid the delays and expenses associated with full hearings.

The Minister for Urban Development & Planning released the Ministerial Mount Barker Urban Growth Development Plan Amendment (DPA) in June 2010 for public consultation. This DPA proposes to rezone approximately 1300 hectares of rural land on the edges of Mt Barker and Nairne for residential and light industrial use.

With the aim of ensuring that its community was well informed and empowered to comment on the Ministerial DPA, the District Council of Mt Barker engaged URPS to run a series of information sessions for the local community. These six sessions were extremely well attended, with more than 300 people able to hear about and ask questions regarding the Ministerial DPA process and how to go about getting involved in this part of the planning system.

In a letter to the editor of the Mt Barker Courier, Jean Lovell of Nairne said that "Mt Barker Council is to be congratulated for its commitment to proper community consultation" and that URPS was "highly professional and responded in detail to questions in an articulate, honest and informed manner".

This is evidence of the success of these types of community information sessions and the goodwill and engagement that Mt Barker Council has fostered with its community through the process. We also believe that this type of process leads to informed and valuable input from the community to key planning initiatives such as this Ministerial DPA."