Water Affecting Activities Permit System

A common challenge for Natural Resources Management (NRM) is to interpret and act upon legislative requirements. This is certainly the case with 'Water Affecting Activities' (WAA) and the related permits. The Eyre Peninsula NRM Board was identified in its regional NRM Plan as the body responsible for some WAA, which meant that the Board needed to develop a permit system for receiving, assessing and determining WAA permit applications.

URPS assisted the Board by interpreting and translating the legislative requirements as set out by the NRM Act and the Regional NRM Plan into an efficient, effective and user friendly permit system. The project culminated in the preparation of an instruction manual which explains the administrative procedures associated with receiving permit applications, assessing applications, and issuing (or refusing applications for) permits. URPS also recognised the need for an ongoing 'refresher' of the permit system and self-administered training for new staff members and so we developed a narrated PowerPoint presentation for this purpose. The presentation explains the information contained within the manual and steps to take through the WAA permit system.

The Board is a relatively small organisation and it was therefore necessary to ensure the WAA permit system used staff efficiently and matched skills and expertise to the tasks at hand. The WAA permit system was therefore developed in a way that will maximise the use of time and expertise of all staff, ranging from administrative staff and assessment officers through to the general manager.

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."