Monday, 10 March 2014

Strategic Cropping Land [SCL]

Posted by: Tony Allen

Queensland Government Reviews the SCL framework & Releases the final Statutory Regional Plans for Central Queensland and the Darling Downs

It was interesting to see that late in 2013, the final Statutory Regional Plans for Central Queensland and Darling Downs and the Review of the SCL Framework Report were released by the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney and the Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Andrew Cripps, respectively.
The state government states that the review of the SCL framework was actioned to 'improve its effectiveness and to better align with statutory regional planning processes, to streamline legislation and protect priority agricultural land.'
 The government has announced that:
  • the new Regional Plans will identify and map Priority Agricultural Areas that will be protected;
  • new legislation will be needed to implement the regional plans; 
  • the government has now introduced a Regional Planning Interests Bill into Parliament which when passed will take effect some time this year;
  • SCL will become one of the regional planning interests under the new Act and the outcomes of the SCL review will be incorporated into the new Act’s regulations and codes. The result will be a single, integrated framework that addresses SCL and the implementation of Queensland’s new Regional Plans;
  • the Strategic Cropping Land Act 2011 (SCL Act) will continue to apply until the new Act takes effect in 2014;
  • Developments triggered by the SCL Act will continue to be assessed against the SCL Act during this time;
  • The Queensland Government has stated that it is preparing new generation regional plans that address critical issues affecting the state’s regions. The first of these new plans, the Central Queensland and Darling Downs regional plans, took effect on 18 October 2013. The Cape York and South East Queensland regional plans are expected to be finalised by mid-2014 and end-2014 respectively. These plans identify, and contain land use policies that protect, areas of regional interest (i.e. priority agricultural areas, priority living areas and strategic environmental areas).
Access to the Review of the SCL Framework Report may be obtained by following this link: http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/land/planning/strategic-cropping/index.html
Access to further information relating to the Statutory Regional Plans, may be obtained by visiting the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning’s Internet site at: www.dsdip.qld.gov.au
For those who have an interest in SCL clearly this is a must 'watch this space' situation.
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