Australia, June 7 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 6:

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 DA23/1508 seeking consent for the subdivision of one lot into two lots (Proposed Development) at 18-19 McCourt Road, Moss Vale legally described as Lot 4 in DP 1292881 (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 the terms of cl 2.6 of the Wingecarribee Local Environmental Plan 2010 (WLEP) regarding subdivision of land. The parties explained how the jurisdictional prerequisites have been satisfied in a jurisdictional statement provided to the court.

7. The Class 1 Application was initially filed with the Court with reference to a now cancelled folio reference, Lot 2 in DP 873240. However, as a result of a compulsory acquisition of land by Council and the registration of the Deposited Plan this title has since been cancelled and subsequently replaced with a new title, being Lot 4 DP 1292881. The new folio reference (Lot 4 in DP 1292881) was created on 7 July 2023 after the DA was lodged.

8. The Site is an irregular shaped split zoned lot with a total site area of approximately 39.934 hectares with a 400m northeastern frontage to McCourt Road and a majority of the site fronting the Wingecarribee River along the eastern boundary. As shown in Figure 1 below, the Site has a split zoning. The majority of the Site, being approximately 30 hectares, is zoned C3 Environmental Management Zone under the WLEP. A smaller portion of the Site, being approximately 10 hectares, is within the E5 Heavy Industrial Zone under the WLEP.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1968f5906bda091a258f6986)

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