Development Assessment Committees (DACs)

This motion did not get seconded. Minister for Planning Justin Madden attempted to set up Development Assessment Committees to strip planning controls from councils, whilst wanting councils to pay for the running of these DACs. The State Government is continually saying how it wants to support local government. The DACs, however, reduces the opportunity for local communities to have a saying in what sort of development they want in the city they live in.

Geraldine

To: Chief Executive Officer
Please note that it is my intention to propose the following motion at the Ordinary Meeting of the Council to be held on 24/2/09
Subject: Development Assessment Committees

Motion
That Council writes to Premier John Brumby and Minister for Planning Justin Madden, congratulating the State Government on dumping the DACs

Background
The State Government proposal to introduce legislation to establish Development Assessment Committees would have stripped local governments of planning powers and given planning authority to a body of unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable people behind closed doors.

Critical to this initiative to fast-track developments by establishing DACs, make non-government schools and social housing exempt from a planning permit and for the Minister to become the Responsible Authority for these projects is the abolition of appeal rights for residents and ratepayers –a denial of democracy in our local planning system.

While some of these actions may not directly affect our community right now, what it signals is a Government apparently intent on incrementally eroding democracy in the planning system, removing from the process the level of government which knows its local municipality and planning issues best.