Regional Planning

1436 The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (24 September 2019). While councils may want a greater role in the development of planning policy in their region, do you believe the costs associated with developing a regional plan are discouraging councils from taking up this opportunity?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning): Councils are only required to prepare a regional plan where they have formed a joint planning board. In all other cases, the regional plan is prepared by the State Planning Commission. In either case, a council may initiate an amendment to a code at any time and thus continues to have a role in planning policy for their region, which is similar to what they have now.

The department has been pleased to provide a significant financial contribution to assist councils in establishing joint planning boards, through funding a pilot to deliver a suite of materials to assist councils in preparing business cases, planning agreements and regional plans. The pilot was delivered with active collaboration from local government.

The intent of joint planning arrangements is to provide a more cost-effective model of governance for planning through the sharing of resources across a region—it is of course voluntary for councils to adopt where there is a sound business case to do so. Shared resources for preparing a regional plan, which can then lead to regional code amendments can have substantial benefit in terms of costs and achieve better outcomes overall.

The department is committed to keeping development of a regional plan to an affordable level and to providing assistance to joint planning boards (that are formed by councils) through the provision of data, research, demographics, mapping and a range of other support tools. This commitment is included within the guide to regional plans available on the SA Planning Portal.

The department is currently working with a number of groups of councils who are well advanced towards preparation of a planning agreement and formation of a joint planning board (who will subsequently prepare a Regional Plan for their area). This level of interest indicates that the costs associated with preparation of a Regional Plan are not discouraging councils from taking up the opportunity to establish joint planning arrangements.