Sam Hibbins to ask the Minister for Roads and Road Safety —
With reference to VicRoads Public Acquisition Overlays (PAO):
(1) What PAOs are currently in place across Victoria.
(2) What month and year was each PAO enacted.
(3) What month and year was the Punt Road PAO established.
Response from the Minster for Roads and Road Safety
A Public Acquisition Overlay (PAO) is a specific planning provision used by public authorities and Councils to reserve land in a Planning Scheme for a public purpose. PAOs have been applied to land in 69 of Victoria’s 82 Planning Schemes for future open space, community facilities, road widening and other public purposes. Applying a PAO to land requires an amendment to the relevant Planning Scheme to be approved by the Minister for Planning.
Across Victoria, PAOs have been applied to thousands of properties for transport purpose – this is to reserves land for, amongst other things, new road and rail projects that are required to meet the future needs of Victorians. A PAO might be required for a specific transport project or may refer to a broader category of transport project (such as road widening).
The location of current PAOs, along with the dates of gazettal and operation, and historical reservations in planning documents is publicly available. This information can be found on VicPlan which is an interactive online tool https://mapshare.vic.gov.au/vicplan.
Punt Road has been reserved for road widening with a PAO since 1954.
