Development contributions

All estimates undertaken by a Development Contribution Officer will be subject to fees. The extent of cost will be relative to the complexity and time taken to perform the assessment.

The following existing demand and credit considerations apply to all assessments:

• The existing demand of any lot that is to be developed will be converted to a dwelling equivalent credit when assessing development contributions. Thus, development contributions are solely for additional demand created by the new development.

• Credits will be specific to the activity for which they were paid (i.e. a water supply credit will not be able to offset a wastewater contribution).

• Credits are to be site specific (not transferable) and non-refundable unless the refund provisions of the Act apply.

There are three types of development contribution credits that may be applied:

You can request for your development contribution requirement to be reconsidered if you have grounds to believe that:

• the development contribution was incorrectly calculated or assessed under our Development contributions policy; or

• Council incorrectly applied its Development contributions policy; or

• the information used to assess the person’s development against the Development contributions policy, or the way Council has recorded or used it when requiring a development contribution, was incomplete or contained errors.

A request for reconsideration must be made in writing stating clearly on which grounds the applicant believes the Council has erred. The request for reconsideration must be made within 10 working days after the date on which the person lodging the request receives notice from Council of the level of development contribution that Council requires. To do this, please complete the request for reconsideration online form and include relevant documents.

The steps that Council will apply when reconsidering the requirement to make a development contribution are:

• The appropriate Council officer shall review the reconsideration request.

• The Council officer may request further relevant information from the applicant.

• The Council officer will make a recommendation to the delegated authority.

• Council will, within 15 working days after the date on which it receives all required relevant information relating to a request, give written notice of the outcome of its reconsideration to the person who made the request.

A reconsideration cannot be requested if the applicant has already lodged an objection. If the applicant is not satisfied with the outcome of the reconsideration, they may lodge an objection as specified in the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act (No 3) 2014, s199C to s199N.