sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

In doing so, the REF helps fulfil the requirements of section 111 of the EP&A Act;
namely that Roads and Maritime ‘examines and take into account to the fullest extent
possible, all matters affecting or likely to affect the environment by reason of the
[proposed] activity’.
The findings of the REF would be considered when assessing:
Whether the proposal is likely to have a significant impact on the environment
and therefore the need for an environmental impact statement (EIS) to be
prepared and approval to be sought from the Minister for Planning and
Environment under Part 5.1 of the EP&A Act
The significance of any impact on threatened species, populations and
communities as defined by the TSC Act and/or FM Act, in accordance with
section 5A of the EP&A Act and therefore the requirement to prepare a species
impact statement (SIS)
The potential for the proposal to significantly impact a matter of national
environmental significance (NES) or Commonwealth land and the need to
make a referral to the Commonwealth Department of the Environment for a
decision by its Minister on whether assessment and approval is required under
the EPBC Act (refer to section 4.4.1).
1.3 Common terms used in this report
The following terms have been used routinely throughout this report:
The ‘proposal’ refers to the work described as the Sydney City Centre Capacity
Improvement Plan as described in Chapter 3 of this REF. It also represents the
‘activity’ for the purposes of Part 5 of the EP&A Act
The ‘proposal footprint’ refers to any land impacted by the works (refer to
Figure 1-1)
The ‘study area’ covers the extent of the existing environment described under
each environmental aspect heading in Chapter 6. It varies between each
aspect and represents the area that may be indirectly impacted by the proposal
The ‘locality’ refers to a broader area. For some environmental aspects,
reference data were collected across a broader area to support describing the
existing environment of the study area
A ‘work site’ refers to the specific locations within the proposal footprint where
works would take place.
1.4 How to interpret the proposal description
The proposal describes six types of traffic capacity improvement that would take
place at one more of the 17 work site locations. As noted above, each work site
covers part of the length of a single road starting and ending at a major intersection
(refer to Table 1-1).
Letters have been used to reference each intersection and road between the
intersections within each work site. Table 1-2 shows an example of how the Kent
Street work site is described.
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 6
Review of Environmental Factors