Tonight I attended the Council meeting to ask that Council defer the Request the Minster for Planning authorise preparation of a planning scheme amendment to introduce a revised Local Planning Policy Framework.

The Local Planning Policy Framework is a key element of the Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme and contains both the local planning policies and the Municipal Strategic Statement. In effect this is the part of the planning scheme that injects local perspectives on what we wish to see in our communities.

In the short amount of time that I had to review the revised Local Planning Policy Framework - I was certain that the document was not 'policy-neutral'.

I asked Council to provide sometime to allow for corrections to be made in order to ensure that the document indeed reflected current policy. Council agreed to delay forwarding the request ot the Minister for a month in order for me to meet with Shire planning staff to go over my areas of concern