THE ACT Greens is calling for deliberately false or misleading development applications (DAs) to be rejected immediately after developers continue to mislead the public about the developments going up in their neighbourhoods. 

The party will be taking a bill on the matter to the Legislative Assembly later this month, but in the meantime, Greens spokesperson Caroline Le Couteur is urging other parties to support it.

“We need the other parties in the Assembly to demonstrate their commitment to fixing Canberra’s broken planning system, by backing this bill when it comes before the Assembly later this month,” she says. 

“Canberrans have a right to know how local developments will affect them, their families, and their community. 

“Too often we’re seeing cases where developers put in DAs that include deliberately false and misleading information.”

In recent years, Ms Le Couteur says one prominent proposal for Garema Place went to pains to showcase how much solar access there would be in the public development – except the plans had the sun shining from the south, as opposed to the east.

“This is seriously basic stuff – basic stuff that you’d want developers to be across, before they go about building,” she says. 

“Where the government suspects that false and misleading information has been included in a DA, we’re proposing that these DAs be rejected outright. 

“Developers should have more regard for the community than wasting their time with development applications that don’t include the right information. Developers should be forced back to the drawing board before any real consideration is given by the community, and the government, to these kinds of proposals.”