27 May 2011
The NSW Government yesterday announced that it has appointed two people to conduct a review the Barangaroo project:
- Meredith Sussex – a former senior Victorian public servant and a member of the VicUrban board; and
- Shelley Penn – currently the Urban Design Consultant to the Southern and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority for Eastlink in Melbourne.
The review relates to the compliance with the planning approval processes in relation to the Barangaroo project. The review is expected to take eight weeks. The government’s media release is here.
The Federal Government has officially released their National Urban Policy – Our Cities, Our Future. The policy was prepared by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport’s Major Cities Unit. It largely reflects the “fundamental elements” of the policy released with the Federal Budget (details in our recent Member Alert). It locks-in the Federal Government’s reversal of its previous assertion that low density housing development is unsustainable (a back-flip that we sought). The policy sets out important principles that will be useful in our push for broader planning reform, but in itself does nothing (although at least “nothing” won’t make things worse). The National Urban Policy can be downloaded from here and the Government’s media release is here.
National Broadband Network (NBN) Co has announced that it has entered into an alliance with Fujitsu and its construction partner, ServiceStream, to provide optic fibre infrastructure in new developments. They, will provide network design, construction and installation works in new developments for which NBN Co is responsible for. NBN Co’s media release is available here.
The Joint Committee on the NBN has been established to monitor the rollout of the NBN until it is operational. The Committee is inquiring into the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2011. The Bill will amend existing legislation to ensure the installation of infrastructure for fibre to the premises as part of the rollout of the NBN and enable NBN Co. to be the fibre provider of last resort in new developments, including broad acre estates, urban infill and urban renewal projects within its fibre footprint. This will provide developers with the option to use NBN Co. to install fibre infrastructure for new developments. The bill is here and its explanatory memorandum is here. Our submission is here.
A bill has been introduced into the NSW parliament proposing minor procedural changes for the Land and Environment Court. More information is here.
