ALBURY councillors are under increasing pressure to re-visit major changes made to the way development applications are approved.
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For the fourth successive month since councillors assumed responsibility of approving any development greater than $500,000, a sub-division of 10 or more lots and any proposal which generates more than five objections, the council’s own “red carpet, not red tape” 21-day target has been well and truly exceeded.
The average processing turnaround time for the 15 applications determined in June hit a high of 47 days and followed successive 30-plus day totals in the previous two months and 45 days in March.
The latest monthly development statistics report was presented to council this week and was adopted without comment.
Albury Northside Chamber of Commerce has confirmed there is growing disquiet about the delays among development stakeholders.
“We will be going back to council at the time it was stated the policy would be reviewed and presenting feedback we’ve had from members and non-members in regards to the economic effect it is having,” chamber general manager Kathie Heyman said.
“We will need to see what we have to do to tweak it more than anything else,” he said.
“There is a little bit too much in the way of stuff coming to us (councillors), but we said at the outset we were going to tweak that so there are no issues.”
The council approved development worth $171 million last financial year with the average processing time for planning approvals rising from 26 days in 2015-16 to 31 days a year later.
The 2017-18 figures haven’t been tabled at council yet.
But it was noted in the June report the timeframes have been impacted by some longer term and complex applications, a high backlog and lower staff numbers.
Two new town planners started last month.
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