The VCAT held that the provisions of a planning scheme should (a) be construed in accordance with the principles of statutory construction generally, and (b) not be construed in isolation, but interpreted in the context of the regulatory framework of which they form part.
In circumstances where the Scheme does not provide a set of criteria for deciding whether a building is ‘designed to be moved’, the VCAT considered that it was not necessary to impose a rigid test or criteria to decide this matter, where none existed in the regulatory control. This meant that while factors such as the design process and intent, the nature of the component parts, the level of wastage or reuse, the level of retrofitting, and the ease and timing of deconstruction, transportation and reconstruction may be relevant, none of these matters were said to be determinate as a set of fixed criteria.
Rather, the phrase ‘designed to be moved’ was to be given its natural and ordinary meaning, having regard to all the circumstances of the buildings in question. This is significant because whether a building a meets with definition of a DPU will ultimately depend on its own set of facts and circumstances and this decision will not be applied universally.