The key benefit of the BLPP is that it frees council to focus its efforts on strategic leadership in the planning system. This includes delivering great strategic planning that involves the community establishing the vision, goals and priorities for land use the local area.
It also includes the critical task of ensuring that local development controls – governing what types of development are permissible in the local area – are up-to-date and in line with the strategic plan. These controls are found in the local environmental plan and the development control plans prepared by council.
When these strategic functions are performed well, the task of assessing and determining individual development applications becomes a technical matter of assessing the application’s merits against the rules that are set by the Council. It is appropriate that technical experts – on the BLPP or the Council’s Planning Officer – perform this task.