There were two themes arising from last month’s decisions, the first being a rural flavour with fourteen decisions involving non-metropolitan Councils (with a further five to the Shire of Mornington Peninsula). The rural Council’s achieved a more than acceptable outcome (pun intended) with only four outright losses. Whilst the fourteen decisions involved an eclectic range of matters, three involved major promotion sign proposals with Council’s refusal in each being affirmed.
From a simple numerical win:loss ratio perspective, major promotion signs must be one of if not the hardest subject matter to win a permit for. A brief Austlii search suggests that in the last year there have been 12 applications solely involving new major promotional sign proposals, of which 10 were refused and only two permitted.
The other noticeable theme in last month’s decisions was overturns of Council NODs. Nineteen s82 application decisions were published, the majority of which resulted in the decision of Council being varied. Two involved the decision of the Council being affirmed, however five involved the decision of the Council being set aside and no permit being granted. Of these overturns, two included a reminder that applications need to be of sufficient quality and application plans must contain sufficient detail in order for an appropriate assessment to be made. This was particularly the case in White v Port Phillip CC [2025] VCAT 689 where the Tribunal listed several issues with the plans before it commenting:
7. It is the role of this Tribunal to assess the proposed development against the provisions of the planning scheme based on the plans that form the application. I am concerned the standard of plans that I am to assess contain a myriad of errors and missing details.
Similar comments were made in Sender v Boroondara CC [2025] VCAT 625 where the Tribunal commented:
21. The applicant’s submissions identify what it describes as omissions, insufficient detail and contradictory information in the decision plans. Inconsistencies between the decision plans and supporting documents were also identified.
…
23. The council and respondent acknowledge that these matters require resolution, but submit that they can be addressed via the secondary consent process through conditions on any permit granted.
24. While not an exhaustive list, I agree with the applicant’s submissions that the omissions and inconsistencies identified do not allow a proper assessment of the permit application to be made.
For our part, Hew and John were amongst the winners again this month, with one of John’s matters of particular interest being Liveriadis Pty Ltd v Monash CC [2025] VCAT 700. The proposal involved an application to amend a permit (which as an aside Hew successfully obtained at the Tribunal back in 2022) to delete four townhouses and construct a rooming house with nine bedrooms in their place whilst retaining other elements of the originally permitted proposal. Council refused the grant of an amended permit primarily on internal amenity grounds, with the permit applicant countering that it was unreasonable to apply amenity benchmarks for townhouses and apartments to rooming houses. The Tribunal agreed with the permit applicant finding:
37. I am persuaded by the applicant’s arguments that a rooming house is a different type of housing that does not neatly fit into the mould for assessment against the Clause 55 standards. I accept that the internal amenity of rooming houses is primarily addressed through a suite of other legislation, such as the RT Regulations, which go to matters such as privacy, security and communal facilities…
If Glossop Town Planning can be of any assistance with any VCAT matters, please contact either Hew (advocacy) or John (expert evidence) to discuss.