Outback developments halted as Legislative Council disallows new planning rules
State Parliament has struck down new planning and development regulations, meaning outback developments can’t be approved and sending the Planning Minister back to the drawing board.
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Dozens of planned developments in outback South Australia have been put on hold after state parliament rejected new planning regulations.
The Legislative Council on Wednesday night voted to disallow the changed controls, meaning potential developments worth nearly $30 million are frozen because there is now no way to approve them.
It also means new applications cannot be lodged until the State Government rewrites the new rules.
The latest proposed regulations would have expanded the ability for members of the public to participate in community consultation and set time frames for how long a development application should take to be assessed.
The disallowance was proposed by Greens MLC Mark Parnell and supported by Labor and SA Best.
Some of the developments now on hold include a 200kW solar farm, jetty upgrades and a steel processing and galvanising plant.
New planning regulations are being released in three tranches, with the next change in April and a totally revised planning code by July.
Mr Parnell told parliament he had been “poring” through the new planning code and found “mistake after mistake”.
“There is so much more work that needs doing and the government needs to stop just saying ‘It’s my way or the highway’ and stop trying to ram this stuff through,” Mr Parnell said.
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“They need to settle down a little bit, listen to the genuine concerns that are being raised by local councils and by the community, and do this job properly.”
Planning Minister Stephan Knoll labelled the move to stifle the planning reforms “reckless” and “bizarre”.
“There’s so much good stuff in here and I really don’t know why they opposed it, except for the fact they could,” Mr Knoll said.
“We’re going to have to remake the regulations but this is an extraordinarily reckless step to throw the baby and the bathwater and the bath all out together.
“They’ve voted to stop the entire planning system happening.”
It is not known when rewritten regulations will be lodged.