Moves to introduce controversial new fast-track planning laws have been compared to corporate tax avoidance strategies, as community groups and stakeholders used an inquiry to call for better consultation by the ACT government.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Legislation introduced on March 20 would speed up big-ticket developments by removing rights to appeal and allow a bypassing of heritage and tree protection measures.
The plans require the government to declare individual projects and precincts of high public benefit before the developments are put to the Legislative Assembly as disallowable instruments.
Third parties would lose the right to appeal before the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal and would have only limited access to ACT Supreme Court challenges.
Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Simon Corbell has defended the laws as being in the public interest, by helping to deliver critical infrastructure such as the Capital Metro light rail network and a secure mental health unit in Symonston.
In evidence to an inquiry considering the bill on Thursday, the ACT president of the Planning Institute of Australia, Viv Straw, compared the laws with measures taken by corporations to legally limit their taxation liability.
Agreeing reforms to planning laws in the ACT were needed, he said the present system was ''cumbersome''.
''Overall, we basically don't agree that this is the instrument to do that,'' Mr Straw said.
''We agree there needs to be more certainty in the post-strategic planning process but that the opportunity for consultation and for strategic thinking should happen upfront much more than it does, and as people get to the finer points of planning that there needs to be increased certainty.''
Comparing planning with the taxation system, where avoidance is legal but evasion is not, Mr Straw said officials were trying to evade statutory or legally processes on the Symonston proposal.
''We think that is moving from the avoidance process into an evasion process and we are very concerned about that,'' he said.
Evidence from organisations such as Canberra community councils and the Walter Burley Griffin Society included criticism of the government's attempts to quickly pass the legislation. Concerns raised during the hearing included changes to ministerial ''call-in'' powers for development applications and environmental controls.
ACT Heritage Council chairman Duncan Marshall used a submission to call for expert awareness of heritage values and independent assessments of sites.
He said Aboriginal heritage sites could be ignored on greenfield sites or in the provision of transport, and known heritage places could be ignored where they fall inside larger specified areas.
''We think that one of the possible consequences of this legislation may be that when an area is declared subject to this piece of legislation that there is no active effort to fully understand the range of values which may exist in that location which haven't yet been formally identified through the ACT Heritage Register,'' he said.
The committee is expected to provide its report to the Legislative Assembly by May 6.