Planning Act reform

The NSW State Government have proposed an ambitious reform of the Planning Act. Such proposals have happened before, but it seems like this time we might have the momentum to get it over the line.

Here’s the key elements:

• Development Coordination Authority (DCA): Development Applications often get stuck in a byzantine purgatory called ‘concurrences’. Sydney Water wants one thing, the Rural Fire Service wants a different, conflicting thing and Transport for NSW have had it sitting on their desk for six months and won’t take your calls. Projects can take years to get approved.
  
  The DCA consolidates all of these decisions from 22 agencies into a single agency with a single point of contact that should get things moving much quicker and bring housing onto the market.

• Housing Development Authority (HDA): The HDA already exists, it’s a panel with three members including the Secretary of the Planning Department which has the authority to expedite large planning proposals. It has been doing great work by fast-tracking a lot of planning proposals particularly in Sydney’s east that would be banned under regressive council planning rules.
  
  The changes would enshrine the HDA in the Planning Act, making it permanent.

• Expand Complying Development (CDC), which are developments assessed against objective rules by certifiers rather than against vibes by councils and planning panels. The target is to have 75% of DAs assessed using CDCs (currently that number is 45%) and require councils to assess small variations to CDCs within 10 days or they will automatically be approved.

• A new Targeted Assessment Pathway which will allow faster approvals in areas where the community has already been consulted on the strategic plan. For instance council consults on a plan to upzone for 10 storeys at a train station, those 10 storey buildings themselves should have a faster assessment.

• Allow appeals to places other than the costly Land and Environment Court.

• Adding ‘Housing delivery’ as one of the objects of the act, as well as ‘Proportionality’ in planning decisions, because so often the planning profession can completely ignore that their rules have tradeoffs.

We think it’s great that the Minns Government is putting this forward, and that the Opposition leader Mark Speakman has said that they’re “pro-housing, pro-reform”. We encourage them to back this change in and set up a planning system that will provide for our children and grandchildren in decades to come.

P.S. If you’ve read this far, we’re trying to get people along to Inner West Council at 6pm, 30 September at Ashfield Town Hall as they’re voting on a plan for 30,000 homes. We’d love if you could come join us, and if you do we’ll give you a free Sydney YIMBY T-shirt. RSVP here.