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Development Assessment for Councils

Many councils use our development assessment services 'in-house'. At times of peak demand (when staff move on for example) having your planning services on-site can really help. We enjoy the extra dimension that this brings to our work, as it means that we are even more accessible to our local government clients; speed and efficiency is improved; and we are often able to give planning teams fresh ideas and a range of experience that can help reenergise work environments.

Councils we have provided in-house development assessment services to include Adelaide City Council, West Torrens, Burnside, Charles Sturt, Norwood Payneham and St Peters, Walkerville, and the City of Port Adelaide Enfield. We have also provided similar services to rural and regional councils such as the City of Port Augusta, the Coorong Council, Adelaide Hills Council and Kangaroo Island Council.

Given the experience of many of our staff in management positions and development assessment within Local Government, URPS has a strong appreciation of the political sensitivity of councils' development assessment role and the organisational climate. This means that our focus is on the efficiency of development assessment: ensuring that applicants have a clear understanding of what needs to be incorporated in their development proposals and why. We also focus on transparency in the development assessment process whereby any trade-offs are clearly explained in the context of the Development Plan guidelines.

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."