About Planning Officer delegations (June 2026)

Tonight Council approved changes to Planning Officer delegations that have as their major purpose a reduction of the need for meetings of the Glenorchy Planning Authority. Efficiency is mentioned only in passing.

The changes increase the number of circumstances in which Discretionary Development Applications can legitimately be given to one of these council staff positions – Coordinator Planning Services, Senior Statutory Planner, and Senior Strategic Planner – for determination. More delegation, fewer meetings.

Debate, questions, and discussion of the agenda item was virtually non-existent. Maybe the members of the GPA were relieved that their workload would (hopefully) reduce significantly. Their behaviour at meetings regularly gives the impression that would rather be somewhere else. It is perhaps not surprising that members of the GPA initiated this review of delegations on this occasion.

The agenda item was strewn with references to “community interest”, “genuine public interest”, “little public interest”, “level of community interest”, “meaningful level of public concern”, and “significant community attention”. It seems that councillors believe that public interest, concern and attention can be accurately measured by the number of opposing representations for an advertised DA.

References to applications as “minor in scale”, “low risk”, “routine”, “low impact”, “non-contentious”, and “genuine significance” are also strewn throughout the agenda item. No mention is made of how scale, contention, significance and impact are defined or measured – the estimated dollar cost of the proposed development is the best that the proposal can suggest.

The frequency with which meetings do not have a full complement of members or proxies tends to reinforce that impression. That fact may have triggered the addition or a tied GPA vote as a trigger for a DA to be dealt with under delegation.

If we’re having trouble finding five, yes just five, councillors to make a full meeting, it will become more difficult when legislation currently passing through state parliament reduces the number of Glenorchy councillors from ten to nine.

Since the current delegations were put into effect in 2022, at least eight GPA meetings have been cancelled due to lack of business. Members are clearly not overloaded with work.

Finally it is a little disappointing that councillors are reducing their workload as legislation going through state parliament will significantly increase the allowance of every councillor.

This page describes the delegations after changes made at the June 2026 Open Council meeting (agenda of meeting, item 11.4). The effect of the changes was to replace the previous delegations relating to discretionary permits (Sections 57(2) and (6) of LUPAA).

You can view the previous delegations approved in 2022 here.

Historical Data

In 2020 Council undertook to publish summary data for all planning decisions made under delegations in quarterly reports. All published reports are in the form of PDF files which can be found here. Over time it seems that Council has placed an ever-decreasing priority on the production of those reports, to the extent that Council usually requires a reminder to produce the report.

The changes

Tonight’s agenda item requested approval of amendments to the Instrument of Delegation which applies to the positions of Coordinator Planning Services, Senior Statutory Planner, and Senior Strategic Planner.

Applications for planning permits for a discretionary use or development only in the following circumstances:.

1. If the time in which the planning authority must grant or refuse a permit will expire prior to the next scheduled meeting of the Glenorchy Planning Authority, and the applicant has refused to grant an extension to that time period.

2. To refuse to grant a permit where the intended use or development is prohibited.

3. All permit applications where five (5) or fewer opposing representations are received.

4. The estimated cost of new development does not exceed $5,000,000.

5. To determine a section 57 application where the Glenorchy Planning Authority considered the application but did not reach a decision due to a tied vote.