Wagga Wagga City Council is advising local residents, and more specifically development applicants and potential applicants, there will be a change to the availability of Council’s Duty Planner at the Civic Centre over the next six weeks.
Under the temporary change, Council Planners will not be available on Wednesdays at the Customer Service desk or by phone, from Wednesday 12 June until Wednesday July 24.
Project Director Regulatory Planning and Reform Rebecca Fox said Council is undertaking a review of its planning processes in order to streamline and improve outcomes for applicants and residents.
“Our Duty Planner service is well regarded in the community, as it provides the opportunity for local residents to ask questions about development applications they’ve submitted or are considering submitting,” Ms Fox said.
“Some of the questions can be relatively simple, such as ‘where can I build my shed?’ or ‘how high can my fence be?’ while others can be about complex developments and planning requirements, which can be quite time consuming for the duty officer.
“We are committed to providing this service to our community, but we just need to temporarily reduce it to four days a week to allow our officers to focus on applications that are with Council for feedback or determination.”
A Duty Planner will still be available for phone enquiries or drop-ins at the Civic Centre on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays over the six-week period.
Council is asking applicants and potential applicants to contact us on of those four weekdays if they have a planning and development related query.
“We still encourage people to ask the questions and use the service but just not on Wednesdays for the next six weeks,” Ms Fox said.
“We appreciate the patience and understanding of applicants, and the community in general while we work through a large number of planning applications.”
