Australia, April 12 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on March 12:

1. COMMISSIONER: This is a Class 1 Development Appeal pursuant to s 8.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) being an appeal against the refusal of Development Application DA-22-00887 seeking consent for the demolition of existing structures and construction of a centre-based child care facility (Proposed Development) at 67 Miller Street, Mount Druitt legally described as Lot 24 Section V in DP2042 (the Site).

2. The Court arranged a conciliation conference under s 34(1) of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979 (LEC Act) between the parties, which has been held on 13 November, 4 December 2024, 30 January and 14 February 2025. I presided over the conciliation conference.

3. The parties have reached an agreement as to the resolution of the contentions raised in the Statement of Facts and Contentions (SOFAC) filed by the Respondent on 13 August 2024. The agreement has resulted in amendments to the Proposed Development including:

1) Two separate buildings have been consolidated into a single building on the eastern boundary in two sections which is connected by an access hallway;

2) Reducing the number of children from 41 to 39 children;

3) A 2m wide landscape strip has been added to the front boundary;

4) Bin room has been relocated within the building;

5) Replacing the turning bay with a visitor space and proposing a signalised digital sign at the car park entry;

6) A bulk waste room has been added to the underside of the stair with access from the side setback; and

7) 100mm deep swale at the landscape buffer as per stormwater plans.

4. The parties agree that all contentions raised in the SOFAC have been resolved by way of:

1)amended material referred to at [31]; and

2) agreed conditions of consent at Annexure A.

5. At the conciliation conference, the parties reached agreement as to the terms of a decision in the proceedings that would be acceptable to the parties. This decision involved the Court upholding the appeal and granting development consent to the development application subject to conditions.

6. Under s 34(3) of the LEC Act, I must dispose of the proceedings in accordance with the parties' decision if the parties' decision is a decision that the Court could have made in the proper exercise of its functions. In making the orders to give effect to the agreement between the parties, I was not required to, and have not, made any merit assessment of the issues that were originally in dispute between the parties.

7. The parties' decision involves the Court exercising the function under s 4.16 of the EPA Act to grant consent to the development application.

8. There are jurisdictional prerequisites that must be satisfied before this function can be exercised. The parties identified the jurisdictional prerequisites of relevance in these proceedings to be Blacktown Local Environmental Plan 2015 (BLEP), State Environmental Planning Policy (Transport and Infrastructure) 2021 (Transport and Infrastructure SEPP), State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021 (Resilience and Hazards SEPP) and State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021 (Biodiversity and Conservation SEPP). The parties explained how the jurisdictional prerequisites have been satisfied in an agreed jurisdictional statement provided to the court.

*Rest of the document and Footnotes can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1957ddb39ba1df648ce925de)

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