assessment benchmarks

10. Development Assessment under the Planning Act 2016: Striking a balance between a rigid and flexible approach to planning discretion

10. Development Assessment under the Planning Act 2016: Striking a balance between a rigid and flexible approach to planning discretion

Since the commencement of the Planning Act 2016 (PA), the Planning and Environment Court (Court) has been providing increasing guidance through its decisions on the changes to development assessment and decision making under the new legislation. From this emerging case law, the PA represents far more than a simple rebadging of previous concepts and approaches and a substantially new and different approach now applies to development assessment in Queensland. In this Guest Blog, Stafford Hopewell (Gadens Lawyers) explains how this affects all those involved in the development assessment process in Queensland, from applicants to assessment managers to owners to submitters.