Planning to develop or rezone your land? Most Councils will require a Phase I Investigation, also called a Preliminary Site Contamination Investigation to be submitted along with your Development Application (DA). This type of investigation is used to identify any past or present potentially contaminating activities and to provide a preliminary assessment of any site contamination.
Be extremely careful when choosing an environmental consultant to carry out a Phase I Investigation or other similar work on your property. In one of our recent projects, our client's former consultant informed our client that their property was contaminated. In addition, our client’s former consultant informed Council that the property in question required a Site Audit. We took the job over, re-evaluated the property and concluded that a Site Audit was legally and scientifically unnecessary. We petitioned Council and had the Site Audit requirement removed from the DA saving our client in excess of $65,000 and a year delay in project startup.