The Department of Sustainability and Environment will develop guidelines for streamlining the permitting system for conducting works on levees for incorporation in the revised Victoria Flood Management Strategy, in order for maintenance on all levees to occur more quickly. The guidelines will outline circumstances in which exemptions from current approval processes are appropriate. Councils will be permitted to obtain exemptions within their planning schemes for:
• the construction of appropriately designed rural ring levees around private assets;
• maintenance works on existing levee banks that do not exceed the original height of the levee, or alter the footprint of the levee; and
• where exemptions are granted, councils will ensure that an inspection regime remains to ensure new levees do not adversely impact others, and are not raised above their original height. The state government to also consider changing the referral role of CMAs under the Planning and Environment Act 1987, to that of an advisory role.
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Recommendation 7
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