Translating Regional Plans into local zoning
After the Regional Plans are completed it will be necessary to make changes to local zoning and policies to give the Regional Plans effect.
Amending Development Plans to reflect Regional Plans
The 68 council areas in South Australia each have their own Development Plan. Development Plans contain the zones, maps and explicit written rules (‘policies’) which guide property owners and others as to what can and cannot be done in the future on any piece of land in the council area covered by the Development Plan. For example, specific zones may exist for residential development, for industry, for shopping, or for open space or community facilities.
Development Plans are constantly updated to reflect new Government and council policy (the process is explained on the Planning SA 'Amending Development Plans' page).
Under the Planning Reform 2008 program the Government and councils will fast-track the updating of SA's 68 local Development Plans in priority order in line with the new Regional Plans after each Regional Plan is completed.
Mandatory Better Development Plans
In addition to the standard updating of Development Plans there is also a process in place to improve the general wording and layout of all Development Plans across the system.
The 'Better Development Plans' (BDP) project is a collaborative initiative between the State Government and local government to rewrite Development Plans across the State using consistent, leading-practice policy, mapping and layouts. Consistent, clear wording and structure of Development Plans across the State facilitates ease of use by industry professionals, stakeholders and the community. Under the rewrites, core policies are chosen from a central State Planning Policy Library maintained by Planning SA, with local variations allowed in circumstances where conditions justify.
Until now the process to ‘convert’ Development Plans to the new format has been voluntary. There are currently 39 Councils who have changed or are in the process of changing their Development Plans to the new model.
Under the Planning Reforms, the State Government is moving to make ‘conversion’ of existing Development Plans to the Better Development Plans format mandatory for all 68 Councils.
Further consolidate zones
The Better Development Plans process has allowed the standardisation of wording such as the names of Zones. There are currently about 40 different Zones in use in the State Planning Policy Library. Under Planning Reform the target will be to further consolidate this to about 25 Zones. A Review will report to the Minister regarding this process by December 2008, with changes expected to be effective in mid-2009.
Faster rezoning processes
The BDP approach will reduce both the time and cost of making future amendments to Development Plans (speeding the rezoning process). In addition to this, under Planning Reform the Government will examine how to further speed the rezoning process.
The median time for rezonings undertaken by the Government is currently about 10 months. The median time for rezonings undertaken by councils is currently about 22 months. The Government will work with councils to find ways to speed their rezoning processes, including using new process options introduced in 2007.
