A draft bilateral agreement that provides a single process for environmental approvals in the Australian Capital Territory has been released for public comment by the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt and the ACT Minister for Planning, Mick Gentleman.
“Today marks an important milestone in the final stage of setting up a ‘One-Stop Shop’ for environmental approvals in the Australian Capital Territory,” Greg said.
“The One-Stop Shop policy is accrediting state and territory planning systems under national environmental law to create a single approval process that satisfies both Commonwealth and state or territory approval requirements.
The draft agreement proposes to cover certain approval processes under the Australian Capital Territory Planning and Development Act (2007).
Mick Gentleman said the approval bilateral agreement will put in place measures to maintain high environmental standards, while reducing regulatory duplication.
“This approval bilateral agreement will ensure that only one decision is required for environmental approvals, accounting for both ACT matters and matters of national environmental significance,” Mick said.
“Last month we put in place a new assessment bilateral agreement and we are now working towards an agreement for environmental approvals.”
The draft approval bilateral agreement with the Australian Capital Territory is open for public comment until 12 September 2014.
For further information see the Environment website.
The post Agreement with the feds on environmental approvals appeared first on Canberra CityNews.