BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 2016 - SECT 8.4 Effect of biodiversity certification

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 2016 - SECT 8.4

8.4 Effect of biodiversity certification

(1) State significant infrastructure under Part 5.1 of the Planning Act The environmental assessment requirements for the approval of State significant infrastructure under Part 5.1 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 do not require an assessment of the impact of the infrastructure on biodiversity to the extent that the infrastructure is carried out or proposed to be carried out on biodiversity certified land.

(2) Development (including State significant development) under Part 4 of the Planning Act An assessment of the likely impact on biodiversity of development on biodiversity certified land is not required for the purposes of Part 4 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 .

(3) A consent authority, when determining a development application in relation to development on biodiversity certified land under Part 4 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 , is not required to take into consideration the likely impact on biodiversity of the development carried out on that land.

(4) Activities under Part 5 of the Planning Act An activity to which Part 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 applies which is carried out or proposed to be carried out on biodiversity certified land is taken, for the purposes of Part 5 of that Act, to be an activity that is not likely to significantly affect any threatened species or ecological community under this Act, or its habitat, in relation to that land.

(5) A determining authority under Part 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 is not required under that Part to consider the effect on biodiversity of an activity to the extent that it is carried out on biodiversity certified land.

(6) This section prevails This section has effect despite anything to the contrary in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 or Part 7 of this Act.

Note : Part 5A of the Local Land Services Act 2013 provides that biodiversity certified land is categorised as category 1-exempt land, and accordingly the land is not a regulated rural area of the State under that Part and that Part does not impose any restriction on the clearing of native vegetation on the land.