Local Government Infrastructure Plans and Infrastructure Charges Resolutions

Integran has been working with a multitude of Queensland Council’s since 1997 (over 20 current and former Council areas), in preparing their Local Government Infrastructure Plans (LGIPs), a statutory requirement for all Queensland planning schemes. This relationship initially focused on the development of infrastructure charging policies and advice, including the project management of the LGIP preparation from inception to completion.  Integran is also an accredited LGIP Reviewer (panel of providers), whose role is to provide a third party assessment of Local Government LGIPs against a standard checklist and to identify any recommended conditions for the State government to apply in order to rectify any matters of non-compliance.

More specifically this work has involved:

• Scoping of existing Council systems and policy strategies to confirm the client’s policy position in relation to infrastructure funding arrangements, taking into account a wide spectrum of funding opportunities including recurrent revenue and ‘user pays’ systems;
• Development of quantitative and qualitative planning and design standards of service with Council officers to direct the form and scale of infrastructure planning;
• Interpretation of Council planning schemes and land use strategies to determine preferred infrastructure service areas and demand for infrastructure;
• Population and employment forecasting and spatial analysis as input into network planning analysis and identification of priority service areas;
• Preparation of comprehensive plans for trunk infrastructure across water supply, wastewater, transport, stormwater, and parkland networks based on interrogation of Council asset databases and future servicing strategies. In many cases this involved management of Council technical officers and external consultants to complete future network plans to a suitable standard to meet legislative requirements and inform infrastructure charging calculations;
• Compilation of infrastructure network schedules including detailed asset attribute data and costing assumptions as input into clear and transparent infrastructure charges modelling to meet legislative requirements;
• Optimisation of infrastructure charging outcomes through refinement of infrastructure charges ‘levers’ to ensure fair and equitable charging outcomes for clients and industry;
• Drafting of Infrastructure Charges documents including policies, Infrastructure Plans and Infrastructure Charges Resolutions to bring together the infrastructure planning and funding strategy;
• Integration of infrastructure planning policies and plans into Council planning schemes to produce fully integrated land use and infrastructure charging planning instruments; and
• Management of statutory approval processes including State Interest Checks, participation in public consultation, and review and response to public submissions.

This relationship has extended to provide a full service to Council in business management, project management of planning and infrastructure projects, and direct advice to officers and elected representatives.

Recently, Integran delivered one of the largest projects undertaken for Cairns Regional Council with the completion of full mapping, scheduling and charges for the required infrastructure to service the City for the next 35 years. This project has involved all areas of Council including finance, planning, engineering and community services to analyse, plan and record infrastructure needs. Integran’s role was to inform the officers, project manage the delivery of the information and to prepare all of the policy and technical documents to meet legislative requirements.

Deliverables:

• Infrastructure Contributions advice and policies;
• Population and employment modelling;
• Infrastructure demand analysis;
• Local Government Infrastructure Plan (LGIP) and Infrastructure Charges Resolutions (AICRs);
• Planning Scheme Amendments to fully integrate the Infrastructure Plan;
• Mapping of existing and future infrastructure networks;
• Schedules of existing and future infrastructure assets;
• Infrastructure Charges Modelling; and
• On-going infrastructure charges advice.