This was a recent recommendation by a Victorian Planning Panel that a planning scheme amendment to impose a Public Acquisition Overlay (PAO) over land should not, for the time being, proceed. The Panel's recommendation is of interest because it is very unusual for a Panel to make such a recommendation.
By way of background, the PAO is the planning instrument used to reserve land for future compulsory acquisition. Accordingly, its imposition is significant for affected landowners. Stonnington City Council sought to apply a PAO to some properties in the Melbourne suburb of Armadale to expand a local park and implement the Council's public open space policies.
The Panel found that while in general terms the planning policy framework provided in principle strategic support for open space initiatives, the proposed application of the PAO to the relevant properties lacked a sound strategic base. The Panel was not satisfied that the public benefits of the Amendment had been sufficiently demonstrated to a point where it could support the Amendment. The recommendation will be highly relevant for future amendments undertaken by Stonnington City Council to impose PAOs pursuant to its public open space strategy.
For planning authorities, the Panel recommendation highlights the need to undertake careful strategic planning and site selection, pre-exhibition of amendments, to ensure that there is a strong strategic justification for the planning scheme amendment that can be defended by the planning authority at the panel stage.
Similarly, for those affected by a planning scheme amendment to apply a PAO, the report will provide a degree of comfort that such amendments can, sometimes, be successfully challenged, because once a PAO is in place it then becomes very difficult to prevent the compulsory acquisition that is likely to eventually occur.
Stonnington Planning Scheme Amendment C197
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