Tweed Shire Council has taken the first steps towards a gradual move to ‘e planning’.
In June, Council launched a new Development Application (DA) Preparation Kit and major improvements to its website to streamline its DA lodgement and assessment process.
By assisting applicants with preparing better quality DAs and reducing the time spent requesting further information, Council hopes to speed up processing times by several weeks.
The kit contains updated DA and construction certificate forms; a step by step guide to the sequence of development and building assessment processes; a comprehensive guide to preparing a development application; and checklists for the 12 common development types. This will assist applicants and staff in making sure a DA has all the right information for lodgement.
“The Tweed community wants greater transparency and accountability in Council’s decision making processes,” said Tweed Shire Mayor Joan van Lieshout. “In recognition of this, over the last 18 months, Council has undertaken major organisational reviews to critically analyse its strengths and weaknesses and implement organisational improvements.
“I strongly believe that by providing a clearer explanation of Council’s development assessment processes and DA submission requirements through this kit, the quality of DAs lodged in the Shire will be greatly improved. “It will make it easier for applicants knowing exactly what information is required at the time of lodgement.”
Tweed Heads planning and development consultant Darryl Anderson welcomed Council’s move towards DA checklists and greater use of online lodgement and assessment.
“Any improvement that provides more efficiency, improved processes, greater certainty and better outcomes would be welcomed by the industry,” he said. “And by better outcomes, of course, I mean reduced processing times, but also fewer appeals and better acceptance of Council’s planning decisions by members of the community.”
Darryl Anderson was particularly looking forward to the upcoming release of detailed mapping information for use by consultants such as himself and the general public.
The next stage of the planning improvement project is scheduled for August 2009, with new online functionality including property inquiries, DA tracking, automation of internal Council processes and greatly improved mapping.
Council is planning further e-planning service improvements in 2010/2011.
