15/07/2026
‼️VERY IMPORTANT‼️
Citizens only have till this Friday 17th to comment on the City’s draft amendments to the MPBL (see City’s poster)
The City wants to change the rules for how planning and building approvals are made public and corrected.
In almost every case, the changes make it harder for residents to find out about a decision, harder to get hold of the actual plans, and harder to do anything if the City later admits it made a mistake. At the same time, the developer who benefited from a flawed approval gets a veto over whether that mistake ever gets fixed. The overall effect is less transparency and less accountability, at exactly the point in the process where residents are supposed to have a say.
For those of you busy compiling objections,
here are 5 key points to raise:
1. A developer can block the City from fixing its own mistake.
Even if the City agrees an approval was wrongly granted, it can't correct it unless the developer who benefited agrees. If the developer says no, the process simply ends - the City would have to go to court itself to fix its own error. The person with the least interest in correcting the mistake gets the final say.
2. You probably won't hear about a building plan approval next door until it's too late.
The only notice required is a posting on the City's website - no sign on the property, no direct notification. After just 7 days, you're treated in law as if you already knew about it, whether you actually saw it or not.
3. Getting hold of the actual plans is now much harder.
Only immediate neighbours can request copies, and only within a short window. Everyone else - including ratepayers' associations who are often best placed to spot problems - can only view them in person at a City office, and can't get copies at all.
4. Sharing plans you legally obtained could now be a crime.
If you pass on plan information to your neighbours or a residents' association to get a second opinion, that could count as an offence carrying penalties of up to 20 years' imprisonment - with no clear definition of what "misuse" actually means.
5. Even if you win your appeal, the outcome can still be changed against you.
As worded, the appeal authority can alter conditions or impose harsher terms regardless of whether the appeal succeeds or fails - meaning a neighbour who successfully defends an approval on appeal could still end up with it altered anyway.
