Australand Holdings Ltd v. Gold Coast City Council

[2006] QPEC 30

[2006] QPEC 030

PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT COURT
JUDGE ROBIN QC

P & E Appeal No BD2657 of 2005

AUSTRALAND HOLDINGS LIMITED  Appellant
and
GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL & ANOR  Respondent
and
STATE OF QUEENSLAND  Co-Respondent

BRISBANE
..DATE 17/03/2006

ORDER

CATCHWORDS: Integrated Planning Act 1997 - Schedule 10 definition of "minor change" held satisfied where increase of 42 residential lots to 44 - canal front lots increased from 10 to 12

HIS HONOUR:  This is yet another request that the Court accept as a "minor change" within the IPA schedule 10 definition a change to a proposed development arising during the currency of an appeal. 

The Council and the co-respondent, the State of Queensland, have helpfully indicated their acceptance of the proposition.  It remains incumbent on the Court to form its own view.  Another judge of the court has already determined that arrangements to incorporate two small park areas in the subdivision (thus increasing park provision) were a minor change.  I think the court today should be aware of the cumulative effect of changes.

There is an increase of lots now proposed in what I take to be a component of a much larger staged development from 42 residential lots to 44 which works out at something like four and a half per cent.  The additional two lots are proposed to be located in a row of 10 with frontage to a canal.  It is plain that if attention is focused on that part of the proposal the percentage increase is much greater.  As Mr Trotter has explained it, the additional lots are created by reducing in size the lots with frontages to the canal.  All of them will still be larger than the average for the 44.

The proposal is code assessable and therefore, as Mr Trotter points out, paragraph (c) of the definition of minor change causes no concern.  One can postulate that there might be users of the canal, or people associated with whatever is on the other side of it, who might be concerned at the addition of two additional houses fronting the canal to a line of 10 originally proposed.  It is irrelevant in the circumstances to contemplate submissions from them in a context where the planning arrangements do not allow for submissions.  That of course does not mean that concerned people who find out will not make representations to the Council or that the Council will ignore what they might have to say, but it is a relevant consideration.

In the circumstances, I think that it is appropriate for the Court to make the sought declaration that the change is a minor one.  In circumstances such as the present the schedule definition becomes rather sparse; indeed it is even shorn of paragraph (b).  There are circumstances in which code assessable applications become impact assessable.  One which might have been relevant in slightly different circumstances would apply to the creation of lots having an area less than 400 square metres.  That is not going to happen, nor (the Court is assured) is anything else to trigger paragraph (b).

If regard has to be paid to ordinary notions of what is a minor change, apart from the definition, it seems to me still open to the Court to accede the application.  So, there will be an order in terms of the initialled draft.