Just reading the Planning and Environment Regulations. Am I correct that council should reach a decision on an application within 60 statutory days? Thanks.
Generally after the statutory days it can be classified as a Deemed Refusal if they have not given an answer and you can then take it to the appeal/governing body Well that's the case in Perth. However it can be extended for various reasons such as if the application requires Community Consultation - it gets an extra 30 days then. Submitting a Deemed to Refusal is not to be taking lightly, if you want the decision made by the governing body then you need to be 110% sure that you really are in the right. I've had something in Council for around 120 days now and only just lodged a Deemed Refusal as the town planning dept want to approve but have finally said they can't approve it under their delegated authority and it needs to be decided by the Councillors. I'm still hopeful they will approve but hedging my bets to save anymore time.
After reading this, I'm thinking we could have kicked up a bit of a fuss about how long ours took. But to be honest, we were in no hurry so it wasn't really an issue for us. But if we'd been relying on starting or were paying holding costs, we would have been hurting.
Yes and no In Victoria there is a statutory time frame of 60 days. If a decision is not made within 60 days the applicant can apepal to VCAT (for a failure to make a decision). In reality the Council can take as long as it likes. The 60 days allows the applicant to take the matter out of the Council's hands. AND 60 days - well, the clock stops and starts with various events (eg when further information is requested, the clock stops and then starts again when the information is provided) Generally expect a decision in 3 (simple) to 4 (average) months if the appliciaotn is handled well. Could be 6 months if it's a complex application. It's usually about management of the process, and constantly following up
