D-Day, or should I say PDC-Day has been confirmed as March 19. It heralds the arrival of the new Planning & Design Code, complete with its anomalies, errors, and omissions.

PDC-Day (March 19) is the date the State Planning Commission has set for the launch of the new Planning & Design Code (otherwise known as PDC). The PDC is the cornerstone of the new Planning, Design & Infrastructure Act 2016 (PDI Act).

Much has been written about the PDC, including by me in many blogs. Particularly in recent times.

There are many changes and they will impact all of us.

A simpler system is what the Government and the Planning Commission have been boasting. A simpler system will make it easier for you to determine what can or can’t be done on your property. That’s what you would think. Good luck with that.

I have entered my address into the PDC search engine. What I found was, there are 234 pages of planning principles relevant to my property. This took my breath away so I checked the “old” City of Unley Development Plan.

The “old” Unley development plan has 396 pages. It was one of, if not the, most complex of all the Adelaide metropolitan Plans. So now you can focus just on what is relevant to you. All 234 pages. Cough. Cough.

Proceeding with incomplete Rules

With the day of operation announced they (the Commission), as I have previously reported, are still working on addressing errors, omissions, and anomalies. We, whether the Council or the Council’s planning staff, private certifiers, let alone the community at large, cannot possibly be expected to know and understand the new system by PDC-Day.

How can we if they are still working on it 6 weeks ahead of implementation?

I will examine In future blogs how much simpler it will be – OR NOT! In so doing, I will focus more on the PDI Act itself and provide information relevant to the impacts on Council.

In particular, I hope to demonstrate how confusing are the new delegations for decision making.