Palerang Council considering the Draft LEP in Bungendore.
LAST THURSDAY Palerang Council completed the review of submissions on the draft Palerang Local environment Plan. Mayor Pete Harrison sums up the procedure so far.
By Mayor Pete Harrison
The Staff Report provided with the 17 October Extraordinary Meeting Business Papers (available from council’s website) provides comments on the themes presented in all 465 submissions received in response to the exhibition of the draft PLEP. It provides specific responses to many submissions, and details the subsequent actions recommended by council’s planning staff. There’s no point reproducing any of the details here, but we can look at a few important aspects of the process that was followed.
First of all, it’s important to recognise that the exhibition process was not a referendum, in that it was never a case of amendments being made because of the level of interest or objection to any particular part of the draft PLEP. An LEP is a piece of legislation that has been prepared under strict guidelines provided by the NSW State government and the Department of Planning & Infrastructure. Any amendments need to be made within those guidelines.
In this context, objections or suggestions are considered on their individual merit, as is the case in the application of planning legislation. In the event, a sound suggestion in a single submission may lead to an amendment, but an objection based on false assumptions, supported by hundreds of submissions, may not. Either way, the reasoning behind all staff recommendations is provided in their report.
The issue that drew most attention at the recent LEP review meeting relates to the proposed zoning of the rural residential areas of the former Yarrowlumla Shire. The problem here appears to be concern that the proposed E4 (Environmental Living) zone has been described as an environmental protection zone, with fears that this would bring unwanted restrictions on land use. Opponents argued that the zoning was inappropriate, and that it would bring unwanted environmental controls and restrictions in land use practices.
There was an initial assumption that the E4 zoning had been allocated on the basis of ecological significance of the landscape, and criticism of the absence of rigour in establishing the relevant characteristics prior to zoning. While data provided by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage quite clearly show areas of ecological significance throughout the areas in question, as illustrated in the PLEP Biodiversity Map, these were not the primary reason for the proposed zoning. The Department of Planning and Infrastructure suggests several reasons why an area might be zoned E4, one of which, quite simply, is that the area is an existing rural residential area, implicitly underpinned by an existing rural settlement strategy. In this case, there is no need for studies to justify a proposed settlement pattern, because the settlement pattern already exists. This is the case we are dealing with here, in zoning the former Yarrowlumla 1(d) areas under the new PLEP. This is the same justification used by Queanbeyan in preparing its LEP—the rural residential areas of the former Yarrowlumla Shire that were transferred to the Queanbeyan LGA in 2004 were zoned E3 or E4.
In both cases, the DP&I has approved the zoning, with the Queanbeyan LEP having been gazetted in 2012. Objections to the manner in which the E4 zone has been applied thus have no substance.
There were a number of submissions that objected to the requirement for consent to carry out commercial agricultural activities in the rural residential zone. Around half of these recognised that this had nothing to do with the zoning as such, and simply requested that the activities be permitted without consent (a request that was accommodated). Other minor land use constraints are being addressed, but these require amendments to the language of the SI LEP and have nothing to do with specific land use zones.
The next objection was to the supposed onerous environmental controls that would accompany E4 zoning. Under SI LEPs, however, environmental controls are no longer applied though land use zones, but rather through environmental feature overlay maps that apply regardless of land use zoning. Environmental controls on development near waterways, for example, are applied with reference to Clause 6.12 of the draft PLEP, and the accompanying Riparian Land and Waterway Map. These controls are applied on the basis of the existence of a waterway, regardless of the prevailing land use zone. Controls relating to other environmental features are applied in a similar way, independent of any land use zoning. The use of one land use zone or another in an area thus has no bearing on these environmental controls. Objections relating to the imposition of environmental controls as a result of the proposed E4 land use zoning thus also have no basis in fact.
Finally then, it is important to appreciate the purpose of land use zoning. In the present context, it is simply used to control residential development. Both the E4 and R5 zones are residential zones. In spite of the fact that the E4 (Environmental Living) zone has been described as an environmental protection zone, its objective is to “ensure that residential development does not have an adverse effect on [the character of an area]”. That’s it. By comparison, the stated objective of the R5 (Large Lot Residential] zone is “to ensure that large residential lots do not hinder the proper and orderly development of urban areas in the future”. Many submissions commented on the work that had been done by residents to create the character of our rural residential areas and the fact that they did not want to lose the existing rural amenity, the protection of which is precisely the objective of E4 zoning. There was no suggestion that development planning in these areas should focus on accommodating urban expansion and residential amenity, the primary objective of R5 zoning.
So while around 80 submissions opposed the proposed E4 zoning, and many people spoke to these submissions at the LEP meeting, none of them opposed the zoning for sound reasons. Objectors focused on the validity of the zoning in the first place, which has been verified explicitly by the Department, and implicitly by the gazettal of the Queanbeyan LEP with the same zoning; the restriction of land use practices, without identifying any current land use that would be restricted by the zoning (because there are none); or the imposition of environmental controls, which in fact have nothing to do with land use zoning. No one objected to the one thing that the E4 zoning does do, and that is protect the existing character of, and land use practices in our rural residential areas from inappropriate residential development. On that basis, it should be no surprise that Council endorsed the staff recommendation to retain the proposed E4 zoning and rejected the proposal to defer this decision.
Nonetheless, due to the extent of the changes that have been made to the original draft, the revised draft will go on a second, 28 day period of exhibition. The intention then is to prepare a final draft for gazettal early in the new year.