Australia, April 13 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on March 13:

1. COMMISSIONER: Residential apartment development is proposed on land located at the corner of Denham Street and Concord Road in Rhodes. Specifically, development application DA 2024/0138 (the DA) seeks consent for demolition of existing structures, removal of trees and the construction of 33 dwellings over three levels of basement, landscaping and related works at a site known as 2-4 Denham Street, within which is a drainage reserve known as lot 163 in DP 6401 (the site).

2. The DA was lodged by the Applicant in these proceedings, Hampton Property Services Pty Ltd (Hamptons) on 24 July 2024. On 24 September 2024, as the DA was not otherwise determined, Hamptons filed an appeal under s 8.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) in Class 1 of the Court's jurisdiction.

3. On 13 January 2025, the Court arranged a conciliation conference between the parties in accordance with s 34(1) of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979 (LEC Act), at which I presided.

4. At the conciliation conference, the parties reached agreement on the matters in contention, subject to the preparation of amended plans for which an adjournment was granted.

5. It is also relevant to record that as the proposed development is considered to have a capital investment value greater than $5m, and involves land in the ownership of the City of Canada Bay Council the development the subject of the DA is properly classified as Regionally Significant Development pursuant to Part 2.4 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Planning Systems) 2021.

6. Accordingly, for the purposes of s 4.5(b) of the EPA Act, the Sydney Eastern City Planning Panel (the Panel) is the consent authority. Council, under the control and direction of the Panel referred the DA to the Panel on 10 January 2025, and the Panel provided delegation for Council to enter into the Section 34 Agreement on 13 February 2025.

7. A signed agreement was submitted to the Court on 21 February 2025, in accordance with s 34(10) of the LEC Act.

8. The parties ask me to approve their decision as set out in the s 34 agreement before the Court. This decision involved the Court upholding the appeal and granting conditional development consent to the DA.

9. In general terms, the agreement approves the development subject to amended plans that were prepared by the Applicant, and noting that the final detail of the works and plans are specified in the agreed conditions of development consent annexed to the s 34 agreement.

10. 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. The parties' decision involves the Court exercising the function under s 4.16 of the EPA Act to grant consent to the development application. There are jurisdictional prerequisites that must be satisfied before this function can be exercised.

*Rest of the document and Footnotes can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/195876e4995ff1c80414ab59)

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