Noosa councillors at their general meeting voted to introduce restrictions to the decisions made by staff on delegation involving the clearing of remnant vegetation, disturbance of habitat of an endangered species, extending an approval made under a superseded planning scheme, changes to items of heritage significance and a development of previous interest to Council.
The changes raised on Monday follow community protest last week to a decision made under delegation enabling the clearing of five hectares of wallum habitat at Grasstree Court, Sunrise Beach, identified as a critical feeding area for the endangered Glossy Black Cockatoos, for a Blue Care retirement village development.
Cr Brian Stockwell introduced the motion during council’s discussion on a report reviewing its delegations of authority.
He called for a further report to identify development matters that would preclude staff from making a delegated decision, and provide them with “more specific, less subjective criteria“ to do so.
Cr Amelia Lorentson said she’d like it to be “panned out“ to include items like petitions.
The opposition to the Grasstree Court development attracted 76,000 signatures on a petition. You have to give some weight to what that means when the community has a strong position on what they value, she said.
In accordance with the Local Government Act 2009 (LGA), Council annually reviews its delegations of authority in alignment with updates provided by Local Government Association of Queensland and King & Company Solicitors. Council’s current delegations were adopted on 17 February 2022.
The LGA allows local governments to delegate their powers by resolution to the Mayor, CEO or a standing committee or standing committee chair.
The CEO in turn may on-delegate a power to an appropriately qualified employee or contractor.
It is up to the council to decide which powers are included or excluded from delegation to the CEO.
The review resulted in the addition of 24 new delegation registers, 11 delegation registers were updated and 49 current delegation registers remained unchanged.
Under the Act, the CEO is required to establish a Register of Delegations and update it as required.
The Register of Delegations must be made available to the public for inspection upon request.
The meeting heard new Delegation Registers had been created to enable delegated decision on various matters relating to body corporate, electricity regulation, medicines and poisons, Queensland Reconstruction Authority, retail shop leases, safety in recreation water activities, tobacco and other smoking products, transport operations and working with children.
Updates to existing delegation registers were delivered to matters involving building regulation, environmental protection, industrial relations, land titles, public health and state penalties.
