Coastal Management SEPP survives an early legal challenge

Challenges seeking to invalidate State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) are relatively rare and notoriously difficult to win.

Rare because often the wider implications of the particular policy do not become apparent until well after the SEPP is made and the statutory time bar for commencing judicial review proceedings has lapsed, plus it is difficult to win because the power to make SEPPs under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) involve relatively few procedural steps and are very broad.

The Land and Environment Court has recently handed down its decision in Reysson Pty Ltd v Minister Administering the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 [2019] NSWLEC 2013¹.