Some of us at URPS remember a time when Council Assessment Panels didn’t exist.
Take the City of Burnside as an example. In 2000, there were often 30+ applications per month being considered by the full body of Elected Members. The meetings would run for hours. Many of the development applications were refused for relatively minor variations from quantitative guidelines e.g. a 2-3% variation in site coverage. Only one Elected Member was a qualified planner, Greg Waller, and he was typically out voted. The administrative and legal burden for Council of so many refusals against staff recommendations was significant.
Today we see the Council Assessment Panel considering an average of 3 applications per month (measured over the past 6 months). We are also interested to see that this number was similar in the six months prior to the advent of the Planning & Design Code.
Elected Members not on the CAP now have opportunity to make written and verbal representations. This gives them the appropriate freedom to express their own views and those of their constituents without being burdened by the impartiality required for determining planning applications against the Code.
Debate amongst the four independent members and one Elected Member on the CAP is robust. Questions of representors, applicants and Council staff can be extensive. People get their say as much, if not more, than they did in the past. The most relevant issues are typically carefully considered.
All in all, the change to CAPs determining a limited number of development applications in a balanced and independent way has been very positive.
