The Court held that a condition in a planning permit specifying a 15-year expiry date, read in the context of the permit as a whole (including its description of allowing 'installation and display' of signs), constituted a 'time specified' for completion of the development under s 68(1)(b) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, thereby displacing the default two-year expiry period. The Court departed from VCAT authority in Crossway, holding that whether a permit expiry condition displaces s 68(1)(b) is case-specific and depends on a holistic interpretation of the particular permit, applying principles that permits are to be given a plain, reasonable and practical reading as public documents without imputing detailed knowledge of planning legislation to the reasonable reader. The Court declined to decide the broader 'power argument' — whether cl 52.05-9 of the planning scheme precluded a responsible authority from imposing a development completion date shorter than the mandatory minimum expiry period — but indicated an inclination to reject it.
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