Australia, June 20 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 19:

1. COMMISSIONER: These Class 1 proceedings arise from an appeal of a condition of consent imposed by Sutherland Shire Local Planning Panel on development consent DA23/0297. This application seeks consent for the demolition of an existing dwelling and swimming pool and the construction of a new dwelling house including a covered rooftop terrace, a swimming pool and spa, and alterations to an existing boatshed at 9 Taloombi Street, Cronulla.

2. The applicant is appealing the imposition of condition 8(4), which requires the deletion of the roof structure on the upper level of the dwelling, and removal of the lift entrance and overrun on this level.

3. These proceedings have been brought to the Court pursuant to s 8.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act).

4. The Court arranged a conciliation conference and hearing under s 34AA of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979 (LEC Act) between the parties, which was held on 13 May 2025. I presided over the conciliation conference.

5. At the conciliation conference, the parties reached an agreement as to acceptable terms of a decision in the proceedings. This decision involved the Court upholding the appeal and granting consent to the development application subject to conditions. Subsequently, the matter concluded in conciliation and did not proceed to a hearing.

6. As part of this agreement, pursuant to s 38 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021, the Council agreed to the applicant amending the development application to clarify the acoustic treatment to the rooftop awning.

7. Under s 34(3) of the LEC Act, I must dispose of the proceedings in accordance with the parties' decision if that decision is one 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, which the parties identified and explained in a jurisdictional note, and from this I note the following points.

Jurisdictional matters

8. The development application was made with the written consent of the owner of the land.

9. The application was adequately notified from 20 June to 5 July 2023. Four submissions were received, but no oral submissions were made at the commencement of proceedings. Based on the amended application, and the information in the Joint Report of planning experts, the parties submit, and I accept, that the development as amended adequately responds to the concerns raised in these submissions.

10. Pursuant to Ch 2 - Coastal Management of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021 (SEPP R&H), the site is located within the Coastal Environment Area and Coastal Use Area. From the parties' submission, the visual assessment in the Joint Report of planning experts and the assessment in the Statement of Environmental Effects by Planning Ingenuity dated 6 April 2023 (SEE), I am satisfied that the matters listed in ss 2.10(1) and 2.11(1)(a) have been considered, and that the proposed development satisfies the matters set out in ss 2.10(2) and 2.11(1)(b).

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/196cd50a9d3a33bc86912db2)

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