Australia, July 10 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on June 11:

1. COMMISSIONER: In a judgment given on 16 April 2025, Artmade Architectural Pty Ltd v Central Coast Council [2025] NSWLEC 1249 ("Artmade v Central Coast"), I gave a decision on an appeal concerning a development application, which as amended, seeks consent for the demolition of existing structures, removal of trees, and construction of a new part two and part three storey childcare centre for 70 children. The development is proposed at 24 Waratah Street, East Gosford (Lot 9 DP 31250).

2. In that decision I found that the appeal lodged by the Applicant was filed at a time when the appeal right was not available. Unfortunately, this was in the context of circumstances where the parties agreed that the relevant jurisdictional preconditions to consent had been met and that the evidence from the experts engaged in the proceedings did not identify any merit reasons which would support the refusal of the application (see [32]-[34] of Artmade v Central Coast). Accordingly, I gave directions for the matter to be relisted for the parties to discuss potential final orders in light of those findings.

3. Following the making of the directions, the matter was listed for case management on 9 May 2025. Following the case management, the parties filed consent orders on 13 May 2025. The consent orders are intended to achieve two outcomes: firstly, to amend the Applicant's Class 1 Application, the originating process, to ensure that the application was filed at a time that the right of deemed refusal applied, and secondly to grant consent to the development application subject to the conditions agreed between the parties.

4. The parties' orders reference ss 64 and 65 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (CP Act), those provisions are:

64 Amendment of documents generally (cf SCR Part 20, rules 1 and 4; DCR Part 17, rules 1 and 4)

(1) At any stage of proceedings, the court may order-

(a) that any document in the proceedings be amended, or

(b) that leave be granted to a party to amend any document in the proceedings.

(2) Subject to section 58, all necessary amendments are to be made for the purpose of determining the real questions raised by or otherwise depending on the proceedings, correcting any defect or error in the proceedings and avoiding multiplicity of proceedings.

(3) An order under this section may be made even if the amendment would have the effect of adding or substituting a cause of action that has arisen after the commencement of the proceedings but, in that case, the date of commencement of the proceedings, in relation to that cause of action, is, subject to section 65, taken to be the date on which the amendment is made.

(4) If there has been a mistake in the name of a party, this section applies to the person intended to be made a party as if he or she were a party.

(5) This section does not apply to the amendment of a judgment, order or certificate.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/19743cd1a67b635b414f3bd4)

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