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The Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW) has emphasised that the success of the state’s new department will hinge on its ability to clearly define planning expectations for councils and developers.
The peak body has welcomed the NSW government’s new Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) but stressed that the department must establish “clear expectations” in order to fast-track development applications (DAs) and speed up the delivery of new homes.
Last week, the NSW government unveiled its intention to implement a new approval process for major residential housing projects and rezonings, aimed at reducing approval times and speeding up the delivery of new homes by not requiring council approvals.
Speaking on the announcement, REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin welcomed the establishment of the new department, highlighting that it “acknowledges the unacceptable delay in the delivery of much-needed housing supply in the state”.
“A more timely and cost-efficient planning pathway has been needed for some time, as the inability or unwillingness of many councils across the state to process development applications expeditiously has been a significant contributor to the housing crisis,” he said.
Nevertheless, McKibbin said that “clarity of expectations will determine whether this new planning pathway will succeed”, and called on the NSW government to “clearly prescribe its reasonable performance expectations of councils when it comes to processing DAs”.
“Those councils which meet these standards can retain planning powers, and those that don’t relinquish them. This puts the fate of a council’s planning powers in its own hands,” McKibbin said.
McKibbin stated that councils must “clearly define the types of developments they’re looking for” to enable developers to tailor their projects for a fast-tracked timeline.
He emphasised that any project which satisfies a council’s published criteria “must be fast-tracked”, adding that councils will “get to set the rules and have no excuse not to follow them”.
The CEO also stated that the Housing Delivery Authority could help to reduce the costs involved in delivering new housing supply, identifying the cost of planning delays as a barrier which "undermines the feasibility of many projects”.
“As councils effectively operate as a monopoly, they’re able to charge exorbitant fees for processing development applications and inevitably consumers bear the cost,” he said.
McKibbin highlighted that under the current system, the Land and Environment Court often becomes the consent authority, which then results in additional costs that are “paid by the end consumer”.
Looking ahead, the CEO stressed that “the housing crisis is unfolding on a broad scale”, and argued that “DAs should be determined based on what is good for the local community and the state, not on the former exclusively”.
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