Australia, June 3 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 5:

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 DA22/0835 seeking consent for the demolition of existing structures and consolidation of two lots to facilitate a 14-lot Torrens Title subdivision including construction of an internal road and associated works (Proposed Development) at 262-268 and 270-274 Caddens Road, Claremont Meadows, legally described as Lot 4 DP 27107 and Lot 51 DP 1166569. (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 17 April 2025. I presided over the conciliation conference.

3. 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.

4. 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.

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

6. 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 various applicable terms in the Penrith Local Environmental Plan 2010 (PLEP), State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021 (Resilience and Hazards SEPP), State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021 (Biodiversity and Conservation SEPP), and Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act). The parties explained how the jurisdictional prerequisites have been satisfied in a jurisdictional statement provided to the Court.

7. The owner of the Site is the Applicant in these proceedings.

8. The Proposed Development was notified in accordance with the Respondent's Community Engagement Strategy and Community Participation Plan 2022-26 (Community Participation Plan) between 26 September and 24 October 2022. Council received no submissions. The Proposed Development was amended with the leave of the Court on 7 February 2025 and was renotified in accordance with the Community Participation Plan between 12 and 25 March 2025. Council received no submissions.

9. The Site is zoned R2 Low Density Residential and C2 Environmental Conservation under the PLEP. The Site includes a threatened ecological community within the C2 zone area and is also identified as being bushfire prone land under Council's Bushfire Prone Land Map and the proposed subdivision layout design is consistent with and accommodates these attributes.

10. Subdivision is permissible with consent under cl 2.6 of the PLEP. Demolition is also permissible with consent under cl 2.7 of the PLEP.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1968a151ef67d4cb120f7ef6)

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