At the 2nd June 2016 Northern Beaches Council extraordinary meeting the Administrator adopted an Interim Charter and that it go out for 28 days on public exhibition. The following is the report on this item from the 2nd June meeting;

‘It is proposed that the Northern Beaches Council – North adopt the model of an Independent Assessment Panel (IAP) used by the former Warringah and Manly Council’s which will remove councillors from the decision-making for Development Applications.
The advantages of the IAP model are that:
• Expertise in the area of Urban Design and Environmental and Development law is brought to bear on the panel through the appointment of appropriate experts; and
• An IAP Charter has been developed and gives clean directions on the roles of the panel members and what DA’s will need to be referred to the panel for determination.
The interim Charter will permit the determination of applications to continue whilst public feedback is received during public exhibition. Following the exhibition a report, addressing the interim Charter and community feedback, will be presented back to Council for finalisation.’

The Recommendation adopted at the 2nd June meeting states;

1. An interim Charter for the Northern Beaches Independent Assessment Panel – North (Charter NBIAP–N), be adopted.
2. The interim Charter to be placed on public exhibition for 28 days.
3. Council delegate authority for DAs submitted under Pittwater Local Environmental Plan 2014 to the Independent Assessment Plan; and
4. The General Manager be authorised to commence recruitment and appoint panel members consists of: • A specialist in environment law; • A specialist planner; • An environment or urban design expert; and • Four members of the public as a pool of representatives from the community.

The full proposed charter can be read by clicking on the following link (Proposed Planning Panel)

Some extracts from the proposal of interest are as follows;

 

Development Applications to be Referred to NBIAP-N

The General Manager will refer to the NBIAP-N the following types of development applications:

  • Any Development Application with an estimated cost> $10 Million and where there are 5 or more objections that are relevant and remain unresolved.
  • Any Section 96(2) application to modify a DA previously determined by NBIAP-N
  • Any DA or S.96(2) Application where a resolution of the Development Unit recommends such application be determined by the NBIAP-N on the basis of Public Interest considerations.
  • Any DA or S.96(2) Application where a variation to a development standard standard in an Environmental Planning Instrument is more than 10%.

Submission by NRA  (To read the NRA submission please click on Documents/Submissions in the menu bar)

DECISION

At the council meeting of the 23rd August the charter came up for approval following the public exhibition period. The meeting report noted that there had been three submissions received (two from the NRA) and each of our points raised were discussed and replied to however no proposed changes, other than our recommendation for training for the four community appointees, were recommended. The NRA spoke at the meeting in support of its recommendations. The Administrator rejected the NRA arguments and approved the charter as is. (The Administrator further commented that when he acted as the last Administrator of Warringah council he was the one who actually installed the independent panel in that council).The report and recommendation c an be accessed by clicking on the following link and scrolling to page 67 (report link).