Property owners will have recently received a letter from Palerang Council advising that the zoning of their land will change under the new Palerang Local Environmental Plan (PLEP). In most cases, the consequences of the change will be at most minimal, but I thought it might be of interest to explain what’s going on.
The main purpose of land use zoning, as the name implies, is to control land use in various parts of the shire.
One of the features of the new PLEP is that it is based on a standard template, issued by the NSW state government to provide a common legislative platform for all NSW local government LEPs. This template defines a new, standard set of land use zones that did not match any of the existing zones. For example, the single, all-encompassing YLEP 2(v) Village Zone had to be mapped onto several new zones, as unlike the current Tallaganda LEP (TLEP) and Yarrowlumla LEP (YLEP), the PLEP specifically identifies residential, business and industrial zones within the villages. Similarly, the former TLEP and YLEP 1(a) General Rural Zone has been mapped onto the PLEP RU1, RU2 and E3 zones, recognising land of different agricultural and environmental value. The YLEP 7(e) Environmental Protection and 1(d) Rural Residential Zones were probably the easiest to deal with as they mapped fairly consistently onto the new E3 (Environmental Management) and E4 (Environmental Living) Zones. The TLEP 1(c) Rural Small Holdings Zone was also mapped onto the PLEP E4 Zone.
The upshot of this is that for most properties in rural residential areas, the zone change with the introduction of the PLEP will have no fundamental impact. Every effort was made during the development of the PLEP to map, as far as possible, the definition of the current TLEP 1(c) and YLEP 1(d) zones directly onto that of the PLEP E4 zone, and similarly with the YLEP 7(e) and PLEP E3 zones.
If you own a property in the current YLEP 1(a) General Rural Zone, things may be a little more complicated. Lots in larger holdings may not all be zoned the same, although the new zoning should be consistent with the productivity of the land in question, with more productive land zoned RU1 and land not currently used for agricultural pursuits, or environmentally sensitive in nature zoned E3.
The changes in the village zones revolve around the fact that areas intended primarily for business, industrial and residential use have been specifically identified as such in the LEP, rather than the DCP, with the result that the associated land uses are now more formally restricted to certain areas of the towns and villages.
Note that despite any zoning change, existing use rights are carried forward under the PLEP, so that a property owner is permitted to carry on any currently approved activity, regardless of what may or may not be permitted under the new zoning. Be aware, however, that existing use rights may lapse if they are not continuously exercised.
One of the documents that has been prepared by council’s planning staff to help read the PLEP is a Land Use Matrix. This is basically a spreadsheet that lists all the land uses that are permitted, with or without consent, or specifically prohibited in each of the land use zones. While not as elegant as the PLEP version, I have prepared a similar Land Use Matrix for the Yarrowlumla LEP, using the information provided in Part 2, Reg. 11 of the YLEP. The Tallaganda LEP, however, is structured somewhat differently and it is difficult to prepare a meaningful Land Use Matrix from that document. Land use restrictions, such as they are, are listed in Part 2, Reg. 9 of the TLEP.
The task of comparing land uses between plans is complicated even further by the fact that the actual names of individual land uses is not consistent amongst the various documents. If there is any confusion, you will need to refer back to the original legislation documents, the TLEP 1991 and the YLEP 2002.
Comment from Julie Coco
12 February 2013 @ 09:10
I am really unhappy about this rezoning. Why are bees excluded from E4 if council is serious about native plant etc regeneration. Council has just devalued the value of my property (20 acres) if I want to sell it as the new owners may not be able to own a pony.
Our street is very very unhappy about this.
Reply from Pete
12 February 2013 @ 09:22
The letter sent out to residents is intended to both inform the community and to help identify unintended omissions like this. This particular omission has been noted, although the error is not that bees have been excluded. Bee Keeping is a form of Extensive Agriculture (using the terms of the LEP template), which is still permitted (under the current draft PLEP) with consent. The issue here is really just whether it should be allowed with or without consent.
I don’t understand why you’ve drawn the conclusion that an owner would not be able to own a pony. There is nothing in the draft PLEP that prohibits the keeping of animals as such. There are some restrictions on commercial operations, but that’s all.
The problem we have had is that the new LEP is modelled on a template, which in many cases provides no direct correlation between what we have been working with in the past. It has been a challenge to bring everything across, with new definitions, without missing anything, and in a manner that makes it clear that there has been, in most cases, no change in permitted land use.
Please advise council of any other such omissions that you note.
Comment from Creekborough Road Resident
7 March 2013 @ 15:11
My partner and I purchased our property 10 years ago with the intention of, in our retirement in 10 years time, establishing a truffle farm or small agricultural concern to supplement our superannuation. Under this proposal our property will be rezoned E4 and we will need consent from the Council.
I am concerned that Council has taken the easy option in its broad brush approach to mapping 1(d) Rural Residential to E4. Expressly I am concerned with statements such as ‘1(d) Rural Residential Zones were probably the easiest to deal with as they mapped fairly consistently onto the new E3 (Environmental Management) and E4 (Environmental Living) Zones’. I believe that this statement is false and that 1(d) rural residential maps consistently with R5-Large Lot Residential.
Further I would like access to the evidence based used to determine the environmental, scenic or heritgage values associated with our property and indeed local area for it to be rezoned E4.
In collaboration with our neighbours we as a community are extremely active in removing noxious weeds, planting native trees and shrubs and encourgaging widelife habitat. We are responsilbe landholders.
I see the proposed rezoning to E4 as nothing more than introducing a level of bureaucratic red tape and an opportunity for Council to revenue raise through fees and charges.
I would also be interested to know how Council will manage staffing resources to assess these applications when it currently takes 12 weeks for DA and 12 weeks for BA to assess a proposed gargage which is within the building envelope and complies with all codes and regulations.
Reply from Pete
8 March 2013 @ 02:01
Given that Extensive Agriculture will be moved to being permitted without consent, I am not aware of anything that can be done in the 1(d) zone today that will not be permitted under similar conditions in the E4 zone. If anyone knows of anything, please let me know and I will endeavour to rectify the problem.
Council felt that the R5-Large Lot Residential zone in the draft PLEP was more appropriate for use in lots adjacent to a town or village—a residential setting with a rural feel. The E4 zone is much more a ‘pure’ rural setting—unless your house is on one of the escarpments, there’s nothing like a town in sight.
As far as aesthetic values are concerned, just take a stroll up Millpost Hill or go back to my home page and click on the markers just above the Wamboin label. You’ll never convince me there’s no aesthetic value there. And it sounds to me like you, like most of us in the area, are contributing to this aesthetic value.
There’s no red tape in the use of the E4 zone that’s not in any other zone, and I’m not aware of any fees or charges that have been introduced in the process of translating the 1(d) zone to the E4 zone.
If anything, processing DAs under the new PLEP will be quicker than under the current YLEP because of the structure of the underlying legislation.
Just for the record, the average DA processing time for Nov-Dec 2012 (since I just happen to have that particular number at hand) was 37 days. We have certainly not been this good in the past, but we are improving.
Pete Harrison ~ The Palerang Blog cross-reference
2 May 2013 @ 07:46
[…] The matter at hand is the fuss, in some quarters, over the use of the E4 Environmental Living land use zone in the draft PLEP. […]
Pete Harrison ~ The Palerang Blog cross-reference
24 July 2013 @ 08:40
[…] in other posts (Rural Residential Zoning Objectives, Much Ado About Nothing, Lost in Translation, PLEP Land Use Zones). All manner of hypothetical arguments have been presented, but they all skirt the real issue. So […]