IN last week’s Nambucca Valley Council meeting, councillors agreed to support several requests to change elements of the Local Environmental Plan 2010 (LEP).

One of these, the need for a DA when closing a road, caused more than a few minutes of discussion.

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In August of last year, councillors voted unanimously to remove the need for a DA when closing a road.

At the time Daniel Walsh, Council’s Manager of Development and Environment, said, “When closing a road, Land Registry Services (LRS) require a plan of subdivision of the section of road to be closed to be registered as a new lot.

“In the majority of cases, the section of road to be closed will not meet the minimum lot size development standard contained within the LEP.”

He further said that the administrative burden of gaining consent from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment is unnecessary.

“As such, it is recommended that subdivisions required for the closure of public roads be made exempt development under the LEP.”

Subsequently a planning proposal was prepared and submitted to the Minister for Planning for gateway determination.

The minister has responded and the information has recently completed its public exhibition period with no submissions received.

Although Councillors David Jones and Susan Jenvey voted in support of the motion to include this request in the LEP amendments being sought by council last August, at Thursday’s meeting the two moved to strike this out of the requested changes to the official plan.

“The more we thought about it and some recent cases stuck in my head, Susan and I had a chat and we thought we would like to keep that [need for a DA] in place,” Councillor David Jones told NOTA.

“I was particularly annoyed that the mayor said we were adding an extra layer of scrutiny but that’s how it was in the first place.

“We weren’t adding in anything, we were being conservative and keeping it as it was,” he said.

Last December, council voted to allow the sale of a piece of land resulting from the closure of a road in Nambucca Heads, and neighbours in Hill Street found their values and views were affected by the council’s decision.

The matter caused much controversy as reported by NOTA for the duration of the DA’s passage through council.

“It seems funny to me and that’s why I asked the question, but in the recent case I’m thinking of, the block created was not the minimum size and yet council was still able to do it (close a road and sell a piece of land to the adjoining lot),” Cr Jones said.

“It’s also quite incredible that when some people want to change the LEP, it’s just a stroke of the pen but when others want to do it, it’s costly, time-consuming and difficult or even impossible,” he added.

By Ned COWIE