- In Tasmania, the first legal tool for regional planning was introduced in 2010.
- The following year, the State was split into three planning regions, and a regional land use strategy (RLUS) was made for each region.
- The RLUS have been amended to keep them current.
Regional planning dates back to 2010, when the Land Use Planning and Approvals Amendment (State and Regional Strategies) Act 2009 came in effect. It was the first tool for regional planning, and gave the power to create planning regions and to make regional land use strategies (RLUS). Regional planning is currently controlled under section 5A of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 (LUPAA).
With this in place, the Tasmanian Government supported the creation of three regions and appointed project managers for them. The project managers worked with State and local government and other stakeholders to prepare the first three RLUS. The Minister formally created those regions and made a RLUS for each of them, as notified in the Gazette on 27 October 2011.
Local councils then created interim planning schemes, based on the strategy.
After this, the next phase of planning reform involved the introduction of the Tasmanian Planning Scheme (TPS), a single statewide planning scheme meant to ensure consistency and fairness in decision-making across the State. This project started around the time the RLUS were due for a full review, and the Government decided to postpone the reviews until the TPS had largely been implemented. Despite this, the original RLUS have been subject to various amendments since their preparation to keep them current.
With the TPS adopted by most local councils and the creation of the Tasmanian Planning Policies (TPPs), the Tasmanian Government is now progressing a full review of the three existing RLUS in collaboration with the regions.
