Planning Changes Could Weaken Constraints on Development in Parks

Newsletter item – Tasmanian National Parks Association, 14 March 2023

Planning changes could weaken constraints on development in parks

Most media coverage of the current Future of Local Government Review has focussed on the controversial issue of council amalgamations but the TNPA’s concern is with another proposed change; to remove control of planning from councils. The legal basis of most of our recent successes in constraining development in national parks has been the requirement for approval of the development application (DA) by the local council, and the associated rights of appeal.

This will be lost under the proposal for ‘complex’ DAs to be assessed by ‘independent’ assessment panels appointed by the Tasmanian Government whose decisions will not be subject to appeal.

The TNPA has for years been lobbying for reforms to improve the openness and transparency of the current process for the assessment of proposed developments on reserved land, but this proposal is a backward step which will be seen as a mechanism by which controversial proposals avoid meaningful scrutiny.