CITY of Mandurah and the Shire of Murray beg to differ over changes to planning appeal rights proposed by the WA Local Government Association (WALGA).
In WA, current planning legislation only provides an avenue of appeal for applicants.
Third party appeal rights would enable other parties, such as the general community, to appeal against planning decisions.
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READ NOWWALGA has put forward its preferred model which would allow councils and residents to appeal only Joint Development Assessment Panel decisions and asked its member councils to support the introduction of third party appeal rights.
City of Mandurah is prepared to support further consideration of third party appeal rights for development applications, structure plans and planning scheme amendments as long as a discussion paper is released citing options and examples.
Shire of Murray voted not to support third party appeals claiming it would further complicate an already complex administrative process resulting in uncertainty, delay and additional costs for the planning approval process.
The council believes it would be better for WALGA to push for improvements to the existing planning process that would result in a greater level of certainty of outcomes and streamline existing processes.
WALGA president Lynne Craige said all submissions received from local governments would be presented to the next State council meeting on May 4.
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