Responding to the draft territory plan, district strategies 'an immense task': Master Builders ACT

Chief executive Michael Hopkins said that combing through close to 700 pages comprising the new territory plan, technical specifications and nine district strategies in three months over the Christmas period would be "an immense task".

"While the new territory plan is an extremely important reform project, the amount of information required to be digested by the ACT community in a very short time period is an immense task," Mr Hopkins said in a statement.

"The ACT government should support community and business stakeholders with whatever means necessary so that the highly technical plan can be fully understood before it is finalised."

The drafts are open for public consultation between November 1 and February 14, 2023.

Announcing the opening of public consultation on the documents on Tuesday, chief planner Ben Ponton said proponents had so far been "comfortable" with the concept of an outcomes-based planning system.

"Certainly, they will be wanting to read through the documents that we've released today to get a better understanding of how we're proposing to achieve that," he said.

"But I think on balance, both community and industry representatives are comfortable with the idea of achieving better quality development in Canberra."

The ACT Property Council said it was taking time to "absorb" the latest planning changes.

READ MORE:

"The changes to the territory plan are highly detailed, lengthy and will take time to absorb," acting executive director Adele Lausberg said in a statement.

"We are hopeful that these changes made will bring improvements to our industry and the wider community."

The plan also takes a small step towards increasing the supply of affordable housing in the territory, Canberra Community Housing chief executive Andrew Hannan said.

"With the proposed changes, it will unlock the ability to develop affordable rental accommodation on suitable community facility zoned sites that happen to be aligned with a place of worship or with social housing," he said.

"It's a small and sensible step that will contribute to increasing supply of affordable rental stock in the ACT."

Mr Hopkins also spoke out against the ability to challenge decisions on development applications in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

"None of these ideals will be delivered as long as anyone can appeal to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a few hundred dollars and hold up innovative development proposals for years," he said.

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.