‘Single front door’: The biggest overhaul of NSW planning laws in 50 years revealed

The NSW Labor government will embark on the biggest revamp of the state’s planning laws in nearly five decades after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Coalition.

As foreshadowed by the Herald in late May, the overhaul will enshrine the three-person Housing Delivery Authority in law. The HDA was established in January and has the power to set on a fast-track significant developments, bypassing local councils.

As the NSW government faces an uphill battle to deliver 377,000 new homes by 2029 as agreed under the National Housing Accord, Premier Chris Minns said the state’s Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 had become “a bottleneck in the state’s ability to build more homes”.

“For too long, NSW has been hamstrung by a planning system that delays good projects and makes it harder to build the homes our communities desperately need,” he said. “This bill is about clearing the path for the right development in the right places, with the right outcomes for the community.”

Opposition leader Mark Speakman reserved judgment until the Coalition worked through the details of the bill, saying he had received “fairly high level” briefings. But he offered soft support for the reforms, on three separate occasions emphasising the party was “pro-housing, pro-reform”.

“We’ll look at the detail and, at the end, we will make decisions in the best interests of the people of NSW. But I just can’t say enough. I can’t emphasise enough how pro-housing, how pro-reform we are,” he said.

Under the proposed reforms, the government will introduce a new “targeted assessment pathway”, which it says will bridge “the gap between a full development assessment and complying development, for types of development where strategic planning and community consultation has already taken place”.

The pathway was for any development application or precinct that had already undergone assessment and consultation upfront. It would remove steps that had already been addressed through strategic planning or through development controls, stripping out duplications that delayed applications.

For example, under a targeted assessment, if an otherwise perfect house design was 20cm too close to the boundary, the assessment would focus on the impact of the overhang, rather than reassessing the entire application. In some instances, reduced or no public exhibition would be allowed, depending on the level of strategic work done prior, Planning Minister Scully told parliament on Wednesday.

Another measure would allow councils 10 days to approve small variations on a so-called “complying development” application, or have it deemed approved. These enable certain projects to gain planning approval without going through a more extensive development application process

There will also be changes to standards and requirements for development applications, and changes to appeal options and review processes to encourage disputes to be resolved outside the Land and Environment Court.

Minns highlighted the creation of a Development Co-ordination Authority (DCA), foreshadowed by the Herald in August, saying it would provide a “single front door” for local councils and builders, instead of the required approvals having to be collected from a number of government agencies.

“It’ll be up to us to co-ordinate what our government is saying about the outcomes, not up to the developer to work out who’s saying what,” Minns said.

The reforms propose removing the legislated requirements for planning authorities to consult the Office of Environment and Heritage if “critical habitat or threatened species, populations or ecological communities, or their habitats, will or may be adversely affected” by an overarching planning policy. A spokeswoman for Scully said the provision would be “assumed” by the DCA.

Scully and Liberal counterpart Scott Farlow have been meeting since the premier signalled he was open to bipartisan reform of the 46-year-old, 327-page EP&A act in January. The final proposal was kept under wraps, with neither Farlow nor the industry shown a final version of the reforms before Wednesday.

The reforms will pose a test for embattled opposition leader Mark Speakman and Farlow as they seek the approval of Liberal MPs. A schism has emerged in the Liberal caucus between the pro-development wing of the party and those opposed to, or cautious about, greater housing density.

Senior Liberal sources speaking on the condition of anonymity suspected the codification of the HDA in legislation was included as a wedge by the government, knowing it would likely rankle some Liberal MPs who believe the authority removes the agency of councils in planning matters.

Minns laid down the gauntlet for the Liberals to back the reforms on Wednesday, saying “we would love this to be bipartisan” and the government was “in effect accepting Mark Speakman’s very big, bold offer”.

Originally designed to improve environmental and social considerations in planning decisions, the EP&A Act has been criticised as being too complex and creating subjectivity that can be weaponised by councils and communities to oppose more housing in their neighbourhoods.

Under the then-planning minister Brad Hazzard, the Coalition government attempted to reform the Act in 2013 but was frustrated by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party after former premier Barry O’Farrell reneged on a deal to expand hunting in national parks.

Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) chief executive Stuart Ayres backed the announcement, saying the planning reforms were what NSW needed to “help industry to build the homes people need”.

“Making housing supply an objective of the planning act is an overdue and commonsense reform,” he said.

Housing Now chair David Borger said the announcement was the “biggest reforms our state has seen”, saying the policies would help fast-track the approvals needed to increase housing supply.

“Putting more of the rats and mice into fast-track approvals is going to bear housing fruit,” he said.

The bill was backed by both the Property Council of Australia and Urban Taskforce, with the latter’s chief executive Tom Forrest saying the government and Liberals “all deserve praise for staring down the NIMBYs”.

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