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Tuesday 8 April, 2008 12:01am

COUNCILS are outraged by the draft exposure bill released by Planning Minister Frank Sartor.

The bill will introduce the biggest changes to planning laws since the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act of 1979. "He is taking the 'local' out of local government," Baulkham Hills Shire Mayor Sonya Phillips said. "I keep saying it time and time again, 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' Local government does well at looking after their communities." Councils' powers have been clipped with the introduction of planning assessment panels to determine projects worth more than $50 million. The changes also tightly restrict the way councils can spend developer levies.

The minister's office was flooded with 538 submissions prior to the release of the bill with mixed responses, mainly expressing concern from councils and general support to the reforms from developers. Feedback was also delivered personally to Mr Sartor's office by a Cumberland Newspapers reporter on behalf of the Hills Shire Times.

The group has been running a Forgotten Suburbs campaign to highlight the impact of the changes on neighbourhood infrastructures.

A few changes were made to the proposals as a result of community feedback.

"I don't subscribe to marching in the street but this is one issue I intend to continue jumping up and down about," Cr Phillips said.

"Mr Sartor keeps changing the goal posts. Big issues that council have been dealing with will be taken out of our hands.

"And where does this leave the community? Nowhere. They're playing second fiddle to state ministers."

One concession made was to give residents the right of appeal to a regional planning panel if a council approves a development exceeding planning controls by 25 per cent.

This was described as an "anti-corruption" measure and Mr Sartor said 13 developments approved by the disgraced Wollongong Council would have been captured by these provisions.

Mr Sartor claimed that despite criticism from the Local Government and Shires Association, that many councils had supported aspects of the new reforms.

President of the Local Government and Shires Association Genia McCaffery rejected this claim.

"We held a leader's forum with 80 per cent of mayors and local councils represented they gave us unanimous support to fight the changes," she said.

Cr McCaffery described the changes as the deregulation of planning in NSW and said the changes suited developers not residents.

Mr Sartor said the laws would build an efficient and robust planning system for the 21st century.

"Where a very simple plan can now take two to three years, in future it will take several months.

"Arbitration will give mums and dads a low-cost way of having applications reviewed if not dealt with in reasonable times," he said.

Cr Phillips demanded to know what's next for local governments.

"Our planning powers are being taken away. Over the long-term it looks like we will end up merely as clerks, shuffling papers and doing administration for the State Government."

The bill will be debated in parliament in May when the Government will release the first of a number uniform development codes for smaller projects.