My trails dozed...

[Jarred]

best.

(space)

[Water Boy]

Meet with council last night. Digger is organised for Friday!

[Ideo]

Not really, especially in NSW where the State Government has taken away many of their powers.

Only because Councils have shown time and time again that they are incapable of doing the smallest of tasks in a decent time frame.

120+ days to get an approval to do an addition to a house? They have the hide to charge exorbitant fees, ignore their own controls and then complain when people get annoyed. Some councils are damn good. But these are nearly all outside of the Sydney metro area. Try and build a fence in Ku-ring-gai Council and see how far you get.

[VW Convert]

Only because Councils have shown time and time again that they are incapable of doing the smallest of tasks in a decent time frame.

120+ days to get an approval to do an addition to a house? They have the hide to charge exorbitant fees, ignore their own controls and then complain when people get annoyed. Some councils are damn good. But these are nearly all outside of the Sydney metro area. Try and build a fence in Ku-ring-gai Council and see how far you get.

Granted there are probably Councils that do not provide appropriate response times but the solution is to implement limits within which they must react rather than to march over the top of all Councils with their jackboots on as has been the case in NSW for some years. The current NSW Government has done this repeatedly, if they don't want local Councils then they should legislate to abolish them. Then see what happens when you have a complaint about something that s happening in your local area.

[Ideo]

Granted there are probably Councils that do not provide appropriate response times but the solution is to implement limits within which they must react rather than to march over the top of all Councils with their jackboots on as has been the case in NSW for some years. The current NSW Government has done this repeatedly, if they don't want local Councils then they should legislate to abolish them. Then see what happens when you have a complaint about something that s happening in your local area.

I'd b happy to see local councils disbanded and a metro wide council put in place. It is a ridiculous situation where you have to work under a complete new set of planning controls between, say, Penrith and Blacktown, or small councils such as Hunters Hill or Mosman that serve one suburb. I live in one of them. It is so anti-development and so driven by the NIMBY crowd that nothing ever happens.

Council amalgamation has worked for Brisbane, and has resulted in a massive increase in the amount of infrastructure that can be provided through simply having a much larger rates base. If you had a council like that, it could be staffed sufficently to allow for major projects like those that go to Part 3A to be assessed by the council themselves.

Then moving out of the sydney region, you could have a lower hunter council, mid north coast etc etc based on the areas that have been identified in the regional strategies.

As for appropriate approval times, there is the legislated 55 days under the EP&A Act prior to a deemed refusal, but really, for home owners and small business owners to be forced to go to the Land and Environment Court to get a change of use or a new deck approved is more than a bit time consuming and costly. Hence why I don't have issues with things like exempt and complying development under either the Codes SEPP or the infrastructure SEPP. Why should I need a DA for solar panels on a house? Or for rendering my house? Or doing a bathroom renovations. Or even build a new house for that matter. Either let them do it as exempt without needing consent or do it as complying with a 10day approval. Done. Makes life easier for everyone. Except for constant whingers who object to someone building a pergola.

Let me put it to you this way. I was working on getting the approvals for two new government operated call centres. Same basic design, same car parking provisions, similar sized lots, just in different council areas. One council approved it in 14 days, met with us and worked through all the relevant bits and pieces and away it went. It was nearly constructed before the second was even approved. And these were lodged on consecutive days. That's a lot of money just sitting there going to waste, with pointless exercises like getting a streetscape design report for a new industrial building in a new industrial area that was designed in accordance with the DCP. And that is why the expansion to complying development is a damn good thing. It simplifies the process, and removes from the process those councils that refuse to act.

However, I can understand the concerns over works under the Affordable Housing SEPP - I've done a number of them - but by the same token the objections are usually not driven by any planning grounds. They are driven by oh no, poor people grounds. Which is hardly going to help anyone.

[Water Boy]

And back to my trails...

[Ideo]

Whoops, sorry about that...

[Water Boy]

Whoops, sorry about that...

No stress mate!

[Ideo]

It's good to see it got sorted though. Bloody annoying some of the decisions they make isn't it?

[Water Boy]

Well.....



Spent the arvo with the bobcat. And BTW thats been my daily for the last few weeks.