The NSW Labor government is planning to halve the amount of time local communities are given to express their views on large housing developments in their towns and suburbs.
In a move which highlights the inherent tension between housing demand and environmental conservation, the government is proposing to reduce the minimum public exhibition period from 28 to 14 days for state significant development applications that relate to residential development.
It is part of a broader suite of changes to the Community Participation Plan (CPP), the government policy that sets out the mandatory requirements on planning matters, including consultation timeframes and community participation objectives.
State significant developments
State significant developments are major projects that are deemed to have significant economic, environmental, or social impacts that extend beyond the local community.
They also typically exceed certain thresholds in terms of size and capital investment.
The power to approve or refuse these developments is taken out of the hands of local councils and given to regional planning panels.
Locally, the panel that oversees such decisions is the Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP), which recently approved a controversial large greenfield DA at 53 McAuleys Lane, Myocum.
The panel will also decide on a large proposal in Mullumbimby’s CBD for affordable housing units and commercial space over a carpark, which is being proposed by government agency Landcom and Council.
Under the Government’s proposed changes, the time given to the community to comment on these large developments will be halved in cases where they relate to residential development.
It is part of the government’s attempt to address the state’s housing crisis by streamlining the development application process.
NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully said the changes aligned with recent amendments to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and aim to balance community feedback with the need for faster housing delivery.
‘This is another step forward in our plan to tackle the housing and planning challenge head-on,’ Mr Scully said.
‘We’re removing the barriers that slow down good development and focusing on what matters, building more homes’.
‘With these changes, we’re making it clear that NSW is serious about delivering more affordable homes and supporting councils to make practical, timely planning decisions.’
Strong objections
But community groups and campaigners across the state have voiced strong objections to the reduced consultation time, arguing that it limits the community’s ability to collectively respond to inappropriate development.
Local NSW MP, Tamara Smith (Greens), told The Echo, ‘Significant developments require more community scrutiny not less’.
Paradox politics
‘NSW Labor are on the one hand portraying a utopian future of housing for everyone if only we can cut red tape, but have no actual plan or laws to mandate residential housing be actually affordable for your average person.
‘There is no world where reducing the time period for public submissions around large-scale residential developments is in the interests of the community, or designed in our interest.
‘How can the state Labor minority government in one breath say they are prioritising community participation through local council consultation plans, and in the next breath limit the amount of time the public have to engage with large complex development applications?
‘The minister for planning is suggesting that the current 28-day time period for community engagement – a crucial democratic process that, let’s face it, rarely brings about change, is holding up the rollout of housing. But this presumes any housing is good for us.
‘Without the tenuous 60-day cap on short term rental accommodation (STRA) in Byron Shire, the whole of the West Byron residential development will be for tourists.
‘It was a state significant development that saw over 1,000 community submissions against it, during a 28-day public submission period, and it still went through’, Ms Smith adds.
Will cause far greater disruption
James Barrie, a member of the Save Wallum leadership team, said in his submission to the government regarding the changes that, ‘The time required to organise, discuss, communicate, and coordinate within our communities in concert with our increasingly busy lives is already greater than the original allowances’.
‘To shorten that again would be tragic, and serve to facilitate decisions that the public would be forced to fight in arrears – causing far greater disruption, resource wastage, and distrust in planning policy’.
‘Planning policy decisions and projects that escape public assessment and contribution pose a great risk of community pushback at the gates.
‘Better for all involved to increase consultation opportunities than decrease them,’ Barrie added.
With the public exhibition period the for proposed changes now at an end, the NSW state government will consider the feedback before moving to the implementation stage later in the year.
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