(1) The P&E Court may make an order for costs for a P&E Court proceeding as it considers appropriate if a party has incurred costs in 1 or more of the following circumstances—(a) the P&E Court considers the proceeding was started or conducted primarily for an improper purpose, including, for example, to delay or obstruct;Example—A party (the
"first party" ) with similar commercial interests to another party started a proceeding. The P&E Court considers the proceeding was started primarily to advance the first party’s commercial interests by delaying or obstructing the other party’s development approval from taking effect.(b) the P&E Court considers the proceeding to have been frivolous or vexatious;Example—The P&E Court considers a proceeding was started or conducted without reasonable prospects of success.(c) a party has not been given reasonable notice of intention to apply for an adjournment of the proceeding;(d) a party is required to apply for an adjournment because of the conduct of another party;(e) without limiting paragraph (d) , a party has introduced, or sought to introduce, new material;(f) a party has defaulted in the P&E Court’s procedural requirements;(g) the P&E Court considers an applicant for a development application or change application did not give all the information reasonably required to assess the development application or change application;(h) the P&E Court considers an assessment manager, referral agency or local government should have taken an active part in a proceeding and did not do so;(i) an applicant, submitter, assessment manager, referral agency or local government does not properly discharge its responsibilities in the proceeding.
(2) In this section—
"change application" means an application under the Planning Act , section 78 , other than for a minor change.
"referral agency" means a referral agency under the Planning Act .