BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 2016 - SECT 7.14 State significant development or infrastructure

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 2016 - SECT 7.14

7.14 State significant development or infrastructure

(1) This section applies to an application for development consent for State significant development under Part 4 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 , or an application for approval for State significant infrastructure under Part 5.1 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 , that is required under Division 2 to be accompanied by a biodiversity development assessment report.

(2) The Minister for Planning, when determining in accordance with the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 any such application, is to take into consideration under that Act the likely impact of the proposed development on biodiversity values as assessed in the biodiversity development assessment report. The Minister for Planning may (but is not required to) further consider under that Act the likely impact of the proposed development on biodiversity values.

(3) If the Minister for Planning decides to grant consent or approval and the biodiversity offsets scheme applies to the proposed development, the conditions of the consent or approval may require the applicant to retire biodiversity credits to offset the residual impact on biodiversity values (whether of the number and class specified in the report or other number and class). The residual impact is the impact after the measures that are required to be carried out by the terms or conditions of the consent or approval to avoid or minimise the impact on biodiversity values of the proposed development.

(4) A condition to retire biodiversity credits is required to be complied with before any development is carried out that would impact on biodiversity values. If the retirement of particular biodiversity credits applies to a stage of the development, compliance with the condition for their retirement is postponed until it is proposed to carry out that stage of the development.

(5) This section does not operate to limit the matters that the Minister for Planning may take into consideration in relation to the impact of proposed development on biodiversity values, the measures that the Minister may require to avoid or minimise those impacts or the power of the Minister to refuse to grant consent or approval because of those impacts.