Goulburn Chamber of Commerce meets with council over 'planning delays'

Goulburn and District Chamber of Commerce president Darrell Weekes is also calling for changes in what he says is a "cultural" problem within the organisation, and an end to requests for "unnecessary reports."

Acting council general manager Matt O'Rourke has rejected the claim but acknowledged some difficulties with the system could be improved.

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Mr Weekes said the issue flared about one month ago after a member raised difficulties with a development application to shift into a new premises. Other members told him similar stories. The Chamber subsequently distributed a survey to gauge whether it was more widespread.

"There appeared to be unexplained long delays and requests for reports that people thought were unnecessary and which were asked for two or three times...They were reports that I'd say didn't think passed the pub test," Mr Weekes said.

"There were issues with files being started, passed on to someone else and then started again, as opposed to saying it was dealt with."

In some cases, Mr Weekes said planners had interpreted zoning a particular way and left the applicant with "the worst possible outcome." When they lodged an objection, the process was drawn out longer.

He told The Post that some applicants felted targeted and that they'd "done something wrong."

The matters related to business people relocating into new premises or making one-off shop changes and who were dealing with the council for the first time.

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Mr Weekes met with Mayor Peter Walker, Mr O'Rourke and environment and planning director, Scott Martin last week.

"The purpose was not to beat up the planning department but to raise issues that individually may not be identified. We felt if we could get an overall picture of what was happening we could talk to the council on behalf of members and find a way forward," he said.

"It's fair to say that if you talked to most people in Goulburn and those who'd never made a development application and asked what the council was like to deal with...We found most people would have a rant about the council and go back to the early 2000s, 1990s and 1980s and say how Goulburn had lost business because the council was too hard to deal with."

Mr Weekes said it was a positive meeting. A key outcome was a commitment to enhance pre-DA briefings, which he was assured could better clarify requirements.

"The Chamber is committed to representing the issues of Chamber members. We did that it a very positive way," he said.

"There was a commitment to improve the processes, without stepping outside the law. We understand the need for some of these reports."

While acknowledging "some difficulties" with the planning system, Mr O'Rourke said several of Mr Weekes's public comments were "unhelpful."

"It is completely inappropriate and unhelpful to staff. To say that the council is hopeless is taking things too far," he said.

"We've put improvement opportunities upfront and it's unfortunate that hasn't been represented in media comments."

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Mr O'Rourke said the meeting was "friendly and proactive" and the parties agreed more could be done on both sides to improve the planning process. This included more DA pre-lodgment meetings, which he believed didn't happen often enough, and fuller information from the applicant to avoid unnecessary delays.

The acting GM said he understood people's frustrations if the same reports were requested several times but the pre-lodgment meetings would go a long way to addressing this.

"Planning is a complex area. I had to navigate it myself with the aquatic centre and I'm sympathetic," he said.

"... I know of DAs that are discussed in briefing sessions (with councillors) as being a problem but to extrapolate a number of cases and say there's a problem across the organisation is misleading. But where we can do better, we will."

Mr O'Rourke said Mr Weekes highlighted about 20 DAs but the council dealt with about 1500 annually.

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