Judge lashes Kelly over Barangaroo law
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday March 11, 2011
THE Land and Environment Court has delivered a highly critical assessment of the decision by the Planning Minister to approve the car park excavation at Barangaroo and said that he had failed to comply with the planning laws on remediation.In his decision yesterday, Justice Peter Biscoe dismissed a request from critics of the Barangaroo project to find unlawful two approvals granted by Tony Kelly in November, but the judge said he did so only because the minister changed the law last week.Mr Kelly's change to the law meant the developments - the car park excavation and early works on the headland - did not have to comply with the planning instrument called State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) 55 which is the main NSW planning law on remediation of contaminated sites.While Mr Kelly's actions ensured approval for the projects was lawful, Justice Biscoe criticised the lack of guarantees that the sites would be properly remediated because they had been "immunised" from the planning laws on remediation.While there was a broad remedial action plan for Barangaroo and remediation plans for individual sites, Justice Biscoe found them grossly inadequate as they did not comply with SEPP 55, which is designed to apply across the state."The basement car parking [action plan] states that the key objective of the 'remediation of the site is to facilitate the future land use proposed'," Justice Biscoe said. "It contains no statement or assessment about whether the land will be made suitable for the proposed development, including the proposed future land uses."While the serious contamination on the site is away from the car park and early works sites, he said the issues there were serious."Contamination of the basement car parking site has been investigated in the past and the respondents suggest, as I understand it, that contamination of that site and the early works site is not particularly serious and therefore there is not much to worry about," he said."I do not think that bears examination. Contamination and remediation were identified as a key issue in the environmental assessment reports."He said Mr Kelly had approved the projects "but nowhere in any document before the minister was there any stated remediation criteria (goals) for those concentrations".He said those goals would appear only in future reports "which the minister will not see and approve and indeed which no one is designated to approve".A spokesman for Mr Kelly said the government has "strengthened the approval requirements for remediation works on the sites" and under two further Barangaroo approvals granted last week both the Planning Minister and the Environment Department would have to sign off on remediation programs.David Hutton, a spokesman for the developer, Lend Lease, defended the approval process as "robust" and said his company would never put any worker or visitor at risk. "We are committed to remediate the site. The judgment does not change the work to remediate Barangaroo."There is significant contamination of the areas of the subject project approvals which requires remediation because it constitutes risks to human health... and the Completed works will also raise issues about potential exposure. ‚€œ Justice Peter Biscoe
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
