Council streamlines Development Assessment operations

Toowoomba Regional Council’s 2008-2009 budget provides Council with the means to streamline the assessment and processing of development applications.

Planning and Development portfolio spokesperson Councillor Ian Orford said that the new online application services and a new application fee structure will assist Council officers and applicants and also provide clarity and consistency across the development industry.

“The Toowoomba region’s planning industry and individual applicants will benefit from improvements to PD Online, Council’s online planning and development program.

“ The new look PD Online which Council expects to have operating in late September 2008 will have clearer entry points into each of the existing tools, along with two new tools, Risk Assessor and Applicant,” he said.

Risk Assessor allows applicants intending to lodge a development application under the Toowoomba Planning Scheme to clearly identify if their application is low risk and assessable in a streamlined fashion on-line.

“The Risk Assessor tool will be available for selected low-risk development types such as dual occupancy, home based business, accommodation units and houses on steep slopes.”

Applicant allows applications under the Toowoomba Town Planning Scheme to be prepared and submitted electronically.

When preparing an application, the applicant will be asked to address specific issues that affect the proposed development and then will be able to attach documents and plans in pdf format. Initially, Applicant will be available for dual occupancy application use only.  

“Both Risk Assessor and Applicant will be continually fine tuned and expanded to service other users under the Toowoomba Planning Scheme.

“These initiatives will result in significant benefits to council and the development industry by improving the quality of applications and reducing delays to the approval process,” Cr Orford said.

In its 2008-2009 budget, Council has introduced a new schedule of planning and development application fees.

“This was precipitated by the fact that all areas of the Toowoomba Regional Council are now operating under the Integrated Planning Act (IPA) and the IPA has been characterised throughout Queensland by an increase in the complexity of development assessment.

“Application fees should reflect and recover the direct costs of processing development applications.

“The new fee structure will more accurately reflect the time and cost of assessments.

“In many instances, the costs of processing applications, including the cost of external consultants, was absorbed by the previous Councils’ general budgets.

“In other words, these costs were borne by ratepayers who may have had nothing to do with the development industry.

“Application fees have remained relatively constant while land values and construction costs have rapidly escalated.

“Therefore, application fees have reduced to a very small proportion of the overall project cost.

“Until the Toowoomba Regional Planning Scheme is created, simplification and consistency of fee schedules will assist Council officers and the industry across the region.

“Most of all, a uniform fee schedule provides clarity to the industry and Council alike.  

“Council will also undertake preliminary studies as part of developing a new Regional Planning Scheme and this will address some anomalies regarding retail and industrial areas in the region,” Councillor Orford said.