2015 News

Vale the Hon Jerrold Sydney Cripps QC

31 December 2015

The Judges, Commissioners and staff of the Court note, with regret, that the Hon Jerrold Sydney Cripps QC, one of the foundational judges and a former Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court, has passed away.​​ Read more​.​​

New Practice Note - Section 56A Appeals

18 December 2015

The Chief Judge has issued a new practice note, Practice Note - Section 56A Appeals​, which sets out the practice and procedure for appeals against the decision of a commissioner pursuant to section 56A. It commences on 21 December 2015.​

Median Sale Prices for June Quarter

17 December 2105

Housing NSW's median sales prices for the June quarter 2015 are now available Metro Rural

Judicial Appointment

10 December 2015

Acting Justice and Senior Commissioner Timothy Moore has been appointed a judge of the Land and Environment Court, effective from 4 January 2016. Please see the Attorney General's media release​.

Registry survey

9 Decem​​​ber 2015

The registry is cur​rently conducting a short survey of court users. ​Your feedback is important to us and contributes the ongoing improvement of registry services. Please complete the survey here​.

Changes to Registry Hours over the court vacation​ 

2 December 2015

The registry will be closed for the public service holiday on 29 December 2015. 

Over the period 30 December 2015 to 8 January 2016 the registry counter will be open from 9:30am to 4:00pm only. The registry counter will return to normal opening hours on 11 January 2016.

For more information regarding the arrangements during this period, please see the attached information​.​

Annual Review 2014

16 November 2015

The​​​ 2014 Annual Review​ is n​​ow available.

Court Vacation​ 2015-16

11 November 2015

The Judges' fixed vacation begins on 21 December 2015 and the first day of term in 2016 will be Monday, 1 February 2016.

Matters may be listed for s 34 conferences, mediations and hearings before Commissioners throughout the fixed vacation except for the public holidays of Friday 25 and Monday 28 December 2015, Friday 1 and Tuesday 26 January 2016 and the public service holiday on Tuesday 29 December 2015.

The final Registrar's directions hearing list for 2015 will be on Tuesday 22 December 2015. The Registrar's directions hearing list will resume on Monday 18 January 2016.

A Duty Judge will be available during the fixed vacation for urgent matters.​

Judicial Newsletter​

3 November 2015​

The latest issue of the Land and Environment Court of NSW Judicial Newsletter, Volume 7 Issue 3 (October 2015) is now available.

Increase in photocopying charges​​

16 October 2015

From Monday 19 October 2015 the charge per page for using the registry photocopier will increase to 40 cents for A4 and 80 cents for A3. This reflects the increase in service, running and hardware costs for the photocopier.​

Filing documents online using eCourt​

30 September 2015

Parties are reminded that eCourt is an approved electronic case management system for the purpose of filing documents in the Land and Environment Court.​ The Court recently updated its guidelines on how to file documents using eCourt.​ These guidelines include the requirement to lodge a court communication immediately following the uploading of the document to eCourt. The court communication notifies the registry of the online filing.

Class 5 Prosecutions

17 September 2015

Prosecuting authorities filing a summons in Class 5 of the Court's jurisdiction are reminded ​to include the date of birth (for an individual) or ACN number (for a company) of a defendant in the summons. This can be included in brackets after the name of the defendant on the first page of the summons. The date of birth is required so that information about convictions and sentences can be recorded on a person's criminal history.​

Metrics and Statistics concerning the Court

1 September 2015

As part of the implementation of the International Framework for Court Excellence, the Court commissioned a project with AustLII to use its ​databases to generate metrics and statistics concerning the Court. The results to the end of 2014 are available here​.

Presentation information

13 August 2015

The slides from presentations by Acting Justice Moore and Registrar Gray to a twilight seminar for the Environment and Planning Law Association of NSW ('EPLA') on 29 July are available on the EPLA website.

New Fee Schedule

30 July 2015

From 1 August 2015 new fees apply. Please note that the exception to the scaled fee for subdivision applications has been removed, and a two tiered fee for Class 8 proceedings has been introduced.

Easier and faster ways to access planning information

27 July 2015

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment has developed a suite of online planning tools that make it easier for legal professionals to navigate the NSW planning system.

The tools provide enhanced access to environmental planning instruments under the Environment Planning and Assessment Act, to help people working in planning and environmental law.

For example, the Planning Viewer lets people enter an address to see the planning controls that apply to properties across NSW.

Interactive Buildings shows the planning requirements for minor building work displayed on a residential, commercial or industrial property. This is known as exempt development.

Local Insights provides access to development information and trends about individual local government areas. Current development applications are displayed on a map.

The Department regularly updates the ePlanning tools and increased functionality is expected later in 2015 and 2016.

Amendments to the rules concerning costs in section 56A appeals

9 July 2015

Amendments have been made to rule 3.7 of the Land and Environment Court Rules 2007 and to Schedule 1 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 ('UCPR') so that the usual costs provisions now apply to appeals pursuant to section 56A of theLand and Environment Court Act 1979.

The effect of the amendments is that rule 3.7 no longer applies to s56A appeals, and that the costs rules under the UCPR that are excluded from application to proceedings in Classes 1-3 of the Court's jurisdiction now apply to proceedings on appeal pursuant to section 56A.

These amendments will be published on the NSW Legislation website on Friday 10 July 2015 and will take effect from that date.

Changes to fees in the Land and Environment Court

3 July 2015

Please note the following changes to fees in the Court.

From 1 July 2015 documents lodged by local councils will be charged the corporation fee. This is a policy change that applies across NSW courts on the basis that a local council is a corporation within the definition set out in s57A(1)(c) of theCorporations Act 2001 (Cth).

Also, from 1 July 2015 fees will no longer be taken for subpoenas issued and notices of motion filed in Classes 5, 6 and 7. This is a policy change within the Court to ensure that the fees payable in Classes 5, 6 and 7 reflect only those that arise under the Criminal Procedure Regulation 2010. Our fee schedule will be updated to reflect this change.

The annual increase in court fees will take place on 1 August 2015. On the same date there will be a number of other changes to the Court's fee schedule. Those changes will be outlined on the Court's website once the relevant regulations have been made.

New Appointments - Acting Judge & Acting Senior Commissioner

29 June 2015

The Chief Judge has today sworn in Mr Timothy Moore as an Acting Judge of the Court for the period 24 June - 18 December 2015. Mr Graham Brown has been appointed as the Acting Senior Commissioner of the Court for the same period.

New Policies for the Court

12 June 2015

The Chief Judge has today issued two new policies for the Land and Environment Court, one on the Conference of Expert Witnesses and the other on Joint Expert Reports.

Median Sale Prices for December Quarter

9 June 2015

Housing NSW's median sales prices for the December quarter 2014 are now available Metro Rural

Website information updated

14 May 2015

The information contained on the website regarding Compensation for Compulsory Acquisition of Land has been updated to provide additional information and to reflect recent case law.

New Practice Notes issued

7 May 2015

The Chief Judge has issued two new practice notes - a new Practice Note - Urgent Applications and a revised Practice Note - Subpoena Practices.

The Practice Note - Urgent Applications outlines the practice and procedure for making urgent applications to the Court.

The Practice Note - Subpoena Practices was revised to specify the provisions of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 that are excluded from application in Class 5, 6 and 7 proceedings (paragraph 4) and to provide more detail concerning the procedure for applications for costs of compliance with a subpoena (paragraph 19).

New website for the Land and Environment Court

7 May 2015

The new website delivers a number of improvements, including improved ease of navigation, improved access for users on mobile devices and improved accessibility through the 'listen' function available on each of the webpages.

Please note that if you have bookmarks that link through to pages within the website (other than the homepage), you will need to update them.

Please contact us to provide your feedback on the new website.

Provision of information sheets at the Registrar’s directions hearing list

5 March 2015

There is a requirement in the Practice Notes for Class 1 Development Appeals (Schedule E), Class 1 Residential Development Appeals (Schedule D) and Classes 1, 2 and 3 Miscellaneous Appeals Practice Note (Schedule B) for the information sheets to be handed up at the directions hearing when the matter is set down for a hearing. Satisfying the requirement to provide this information appears to have fallen into disuse in the recent past. Compliance with providing these information sheets will be required on and from 9 March 2015 in all relevant proceedings.

Valuer General Policies

2 March 2015

On 4 September 2014, we advised that the Valuer General had commenced publishing policies for the land valuation system.  Further policies have been released since then. The second set (of two further policies) was released in February 2015. A link to all of the Valuer General's policies is available on the Helpful materials page for valuation objection appeals 

Transparency in merit appeals

20 February 2015

The Court is introducing three measures that will increase the transparency of the Court’s processes and provide greater access to details of outcomes of proceedings in merit appeals. These measures are as follows:

1. When a matter settles as a consequence of a successful conciliation conference conducted pursuant to s 34 or s 34AA of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979, the terms of the orders made to reflect the agreement between parties (the decision referred to s 34(3) of the Court Act) will be published;

2.  When a decision in a merit appeal is given with the decision incorporating directions requiring the preparation of further material (such as revised proposed conditions of development consent) prior to the making of the orders, when the orders are subsequently made, an addendum will be added to the published decision noting that the orders have been made and providing a link accessing the terms of the orders and any annexures to them; and

3.  All merit appeal decisions that are finalised by orders made at the time of giving the decision will have any annexures referred to in such orders (for example conditions of development consent) made available by the incorporation of a link to them published with the judgement referring to them.

These three measures will be implemented from 1 March 2015.

Latest Housing NSW's figures

16 February 2015

Housing NSW's median sales prices for all dwellings by LGA for the  September quarter 2014 are now available. 

Planning principle

​January ​2015​

In Amazonia Hotels Pty Ltd v Council of the City of Sydney[2014] NSWLEC 1247, Pearson C set out at (72) that the Commissioners had decided that the planning principle in Renaldo Plus 3 Pty Ltd v Hurstville City Council [2005] NSWLEC 315 should be retained but revised to require that, where a Plan of Management is appropriate, it should be incorporated in the conditions of consent. As a consequence, the sixth question in Renaldo is re-worded to read:

Is the Management Plan incorporated in the conditions of consent, and to be enforced as a condition of consent?