By Timothy Allen and Barisha Tashnin -
Snpashot
- In cases of compulsory land acquisition, the acquiring authority must engage in a minimum of six months of negotiation with landowners before it can commence the formal compulsory acquisition process.
- During the six-month negotiation period, acquiring authorities must make a ‘genuine attempt’ to acquire the land by agreement although ‘genuine attempt’ is not defined in the Just Terms Act.
- Dispossessed landowners can often struggle to meaningfully negotiate with acquiring authorities due to financial constraints, personal stress and/or an adversarial approach sometimes taken by acquiring agencies.
Section 10A of the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 (NSW) (‘Just Terms Act’) was enacted following the independent ‘Russell Review’ of the Just Terms Act in 2014, which identified common concerns expressed by landowners regarding the lack of transparency and the complexity of the acquisition process. In particular, public submissions to the Russell Review reflected a desire for a mechanism requiring ‘bona fide negotiations’ between landowners and acquiring authorities.
Section 10A provides for a mandatory six-month negotiation period between acquiring authorities and landowners. Under s 10A(2), the acquiring authority must use this period to ‘make a genuine attempt to acquire the land by agreement for at least six months before giving a proposed acquisition notice’.
The obligation to make a ‘genuine attempt’ to negotiate goes to the broader aim of the Just Terms Act to improve the transparency and fairness of the land acquisition process in a way that adequately balances the property rights of landowners and the public good derived from public projects.
