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Media Releases |
Media Release - Department of Planning Sydney: 17 November 2008 COUNCILS URGED TO PROVIDE SEPP 1 INFORMATION Local councils have four weeks to provide information about their usage of State environmental planning policy one (SEPP 1) powers to the Department of Planning.
The Director-General of the Department of Planning, Sam Haddad, on Friday issued a circular to all local councils about usage of SEPP 1, which was raised in the recent ICAC report into Wollongong City Council.
SEPP 1 allows a council to vary development standards outside those set by a local environment plan.
It is in place to allow some flexibility, where strict compliance with those standards would be unreasonable or unnecessary, or lead to a bad design outcome.
“The Department wants to work with local councils to ensure that SEPP 1 is being used in an appropriate fashion across the State,” Mr Haddad said.
“In May 2008, the Department issued a circular reinforcing that all councils are required to complete quarterly returns to the Department on their usage of SEPP 1 when approving new developments.
“This requires councils to establish a central record of their use of SEPP 1 and puts the Department in a better position to monitor councils’ usage of the SEPP.
“Since issuing of the circular in May, only a small number of the State’s councils have responded to the Department on their use of SEPP 1 in the period 1 July to 30 September 2008.
“The rest of the councils still have until 15 December 2008 to get their responses in.
“The Department will look further at the status of individual council's SEPP 1 powers if they do not meet the timeline.”
In response to the findings of the ICAC investigation into Wollongong City Council, councils are required to: • Establish a register of development applications determined with variations in standards under SEPP 1; • Require all development applications where there has been a variation greater than 10% in standards under SEPP 1 to be determined by full council (rather than general manager or nominated staff member); • Provide a report to each council meeting on the development applications determined where there had been a variation in standards under SEPP 1; and • Make the register of development applications determined with variations in standards under SEPP 1 available to the public on the council’s website.
“In 2009, the Department of Planning will be working closely with councils in relation to their SEPP 1 decisions, based on the data received this year,” Mr Haddad said.
The Department’s circular to councils is available at www.planning.nsw.gov.au/planningsystem/pdf/ps08_014_variations_to_sepp1.pdf
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