By Daniel Tran
A PROPOSED fee hike will gag residents and pave the way for resource-rich developers to push projects through the state planning tribunal, critics say.
Planning reform group Save Our Suburbs says a move by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to raise its fees would effectively silence locals.
The proposed changes mean that from March, fees to lodge an objection with the tribunal would quadruple from $322 to $1462 for a development costing between $1 million and $5 million.
By 2015 the fee would rise to $2014. Developments costing more than $5 million would increase from $1290 to $1462.
Save our Suburbs president Ian Wood said groups with fewer objectors would be hardest hit.
“It’s a further dampener on people trying to oppose inappropriate development. VCAT was supposed to be the cheap avenue of appeal for ordinary lay people without having recourse to legal assistance.”
The fee rise comes as medium to high-density development in Greater Dandenong continues to increase with residents in central Dandenong already facing reduced rights of appeal against planning applications in the residential 2 zone.
Mr Wood said developers who continually resorted to using lawyers meant the tribunal’s legal system became more costly over time.
“The cases that go to VCAT are the ones where the developers are trying to push the boundaries. They’ve got the money to take advantage of it. ”
But a state government spokesman defended the increased costs. “The previous Labor government failed to keep fees in line with the costs of running VCAT, meaning that an increasing and unreasonable share of the costs has been falling on taxpayers.”
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