Local councils throughout New South Wales will be ranked on a publicly accessible league table for their performance in terms of timeliness in progressing applications for new housing and other developments as the state seeks to accelerate new housing delivery.

Last week, NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully unveiled new measures which are designed to add further momentum to the state’s efforts in unlocking new housing delivery.

The measures aim to hold local councils and state agencies accountable for their performance in terms of timely assessment of development applications for new housing and other building projects.

As part pf the reforms, the minister has issued an updated version of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Statement of Expectations Order 2021. This concerns the timeliness of lodgement and assessment for new development applications.

Under the updated statement:

  • From 1 July 2024, each council will be expected to lodge development applications for which it is the consent authority within an average of 14 days of submission. This will reduce to 7 days from 1 July 2025.
  • From 1 July 2024, councils will be expected to determine applications within the lesser of a council’s previous average and an average of 115 days. This reduces 105, 95 and 85 days from 1 July 2025, 1 July 2026 and 1 July 2027 respectively.

Performances against targets will be a factor in determining local council eligibility for a share of $200 million in financial incentives that will be offered to local councils under the state’s Faster Assessments Program.

These incentives will assist councils to fund the creation of green spaces such as parks, sporting facilities and smaller pocket parks as well as maintenance of local streets and footpaths.

Where councils fail to perform satisfactorily over time, the Minister for Local Government has the power to issue a performance improvement order. Such an order will outline actions which the council needs to take in order to improve performance.

To deliver upon public accountability, the NSW Government has published a series of league tables under which council performance against expectations is disclosed.

The league tables show performance in relation to both residential development assessments specifically and all developments generally.

In terms of residential development specifically, the tables show that:

  • Across all councils, the average timeframe recorded for lodgement of development applications in 2023/24 was 17 days. This exceeds the 14 days that will be expected in 2024/25.
  • Across all councils, the average timeframe for development assessment in 2023/24 was 113 days. This is within the 2024/25 requirement of 115 days.
  • In 2023/24, 72 local councils recorded average lodgement timeframes that exceeded the 14-day average that will be expected in 2024/25. Meanwhile, 39 councils recorded average development assessment timeframes which exceeded the 115-day average that will be expected in 2024/25.
  • In terms of individual councils, Warrumbungle recorded the slowest average application lodgement timeframes for residential applications (105 days). This exceeds the expected performance in 2024 by a factor of seven (albeit on a low number of applications – see table). Meanwhile, Brewarrina, Federation, Balina and Bellingen also had lodgement times which were several times the expected standard for 2024/25.
  • In terms of assessments, Georges River topped the list of worst performances with an average assessment timeframe for residential developments of 259 days. This is followed by North Sydney (249), Sutherland (242), Ballina (234 and Tweed (226).

(Note: caution should be observed when interpreting the ranking of individual councils against other councils. This is because application timeframes will vary according to the complexity of development (such as a large-scale apartment complexes as opposed to a detached house) and the resources which individual councils posses in terms of development assessment.)

The data will also monitor state government performance to ensure that state-based agencies are held accountable for their own timeliness.

Toward this end, timeframes for referrals of Regionally Significant Development Applications to planning panels, assessment of State Significant Development for infill and assessment for Transit Oriented Development accelerated precincts will be published from August 2024, September 2024 and 2025 (no specified date) respectively.

(Screenshot of NSW Council league table dashboard)

The latest measures come as New South Wales is aiming to deliver 377,000 new homes over the five years from 1 July 2024 under the National Housing Accord.

With local councils accounting for 85 percent of residential development assessments throughout the state, the Government says that the role of municipalities in delivering upon housing targets should not be underestimated.

In May, the government published five-year housing targets for each council in an effort to ensure that each municipality accommodates its fair share of new housing growth.

(Screenshot of NSW Council league table dashboard)

NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully welcomed the latest measures.

“We are committed to building a better NSW with more homes so young people, families and workers have somewhere to live,” Scully said.

“The Government has announced a suite of housing reforms over the past 12 months aimed at delivering more homes faster.

“We are now introducing new performance standards and monitoring because if we don’t measure performance then we can’t monitor it properly.

“Councils approve the vast majority of residential development in our State, so tracking their performance is critical if we together want to meet our housing targets. But we will also track the performance of the State government as well to hold ourselves to account.

“The updated Statement of Expectations, alongside improved monitoring, reporting, support and compliance initiatives will help councils and the State to speed up development assessments and improve transparency and accountability in the planning process.”

Property industry lobby groups welcomed the announcement.

Tom Forrest, CEO of Urban Taskforce, said the rankings provide greater accountability in government performance.

Nevertheless, Forrest issued a caution in terms of the interpretation of data at an early stage. This is particularly the case as assessment timeframes will vary according to different types of housing as referred to above.

Forrest added that the ultimate test of accountability will occur only when it becomes clear that one or more councils are unable or unwilling to meet expectations.

“Greater transparency in the NSW planning system is a very positive step and the Minns Government should be congratulated for delivering on this commitment,” Forrest said.

“You can’t improve what you can’t measure – that is certainly the case with planning.

“The data set published for the first time today is a great first step – but there is room for improvement. Interpreting this data at this early stage requires caution.

“We need to be sure we are measuring “apples with apples”. The fact that the top ten leading councils in terms of assessment timeframes are all smaller rural councils is evidence for this.

“You cannot compare a multi-storey mixed-use high-rise development assessment with a house and land package development in rural NSW. The data needs to be disaggregated so meaningful comparisons of performance can be made.”

Stuart Ayres, CEO of the Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW (UDIA NSW, broadly aggress.

Ayres stresses the need for the data to be further disaggregated to show how long different types of housing are taking to approve (as things stand, the data at this stage is broken down only into ‘residential’ and ‘all’ approvals).

In addition, Ayres is encouraging the government to further expand the dashboard to include time taken from approval to the issuing of a construction certificate.

This is the case as many development approvals are being issued with a significant number of conditions which require further approvals.

He says that many UDIA members are reporting that the average time to move from approval to construction can be anywhere from 6-8 months while they negotiate approvals with water, power, sewer and roads access and other government agencies.

“We see today’s announcement as a great start in providing greater transparency on the development approval process,” Ayres said.

“It will shine a light on timeframes around the lodgement, acceptance and approval of development applications.

“However, it may only tell part of the story because we are increasingly seeing more and more delays in the period following DA approval, to the time it takes to start building.”

 

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