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The Property Council of Australia has called for new planning reforms in NSW, as only “barely half” of development approvals for higher density buildings in Greater Sydney are being processed on time.
Recent analysis by the Property Council of Australia (PCA) revealed that fewer than one in four of Greater Sydney’s 33 councils (24 per cent) met the target assessment time for higher density residential approvals.
Data indicated that the average assessment period for higher density residential approvals lasted 173 days during the seven months up to 28 February 2025, with many projects remaining stuck in the system for over 250 days.
While Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data from January indicated a “brief uplift” in building approvals, the council highlighted that there was a “sharp fall” to 3,390 approvals in February.
Property Council NSW executive director, Katie Stevenson, said the data was a “serious warning sign”, as the February building approvals represented just over half of the 6,250 homes required each month for the state to be on track with the national 1.2 million housing target.
Stevenson said that, while the NSW government considers higher density housing development “key to solving the housing crisis”, data showed that only half of DAs for higher density developments in Greater Sydney were processed on time.
“With some approvals taking more than 250 days, and ABS data showing apartments now average over 2.5 years to build, the timelines are blowing out,” Stevenson said.
“When it takes a year or more just to get the green light, many projects become unviable before construction even begins,” she added.
Despite NSW having recent “positive” reforms such as the new transport-oriented development (TOD) accelerated projects and low- to mid-rise housing reforms, Stevenson said the data suggested the new initiatives could add “more pressure” to already struggling councils.
“If many councils can’t meet their targets for processing higher density residential developments now, adding more DAs into an overloaded system risks even longer delays, so it’s important for government to address this with some urgency,” she said.
Stevenson emphasised that the success of planning reform relies on approvals being “processed more efficiently”, pointing out that the government should prioritise council resourcing and hold underperforming agencies and councils accountable.
New best-practice guide for council approvals to be released
This analysis by the PCA followed the latest NSW government research on the impact of logistical errors on delays in approving more homes in the state.
In the past 12 months, NSW councils reviewed over 5,250 development applications, with the state government revealing that nearly 1,000 contained “minor errors and inconsistencies”, leading to avoidable delays.
Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, said that “these are simply errors leading to unnecessary delays”.
To tackle these logistical challenges, the NSW government will issue a guide for councils on the “best practice approach” for reviewing draft conditions of consent and eliminating errors in the development approvals process.
The new planning circular will outline a new step for developments with 30 or more dwellings, requiring councils to provide applicants with draft conditions of consent for their review during the assessment process.
Applicants will then have seven days to review the draft conditions of consent and provide councils with feedback.
Scully emphasised that issuing the new planning circular will help ensure that “typos don’t get in the way of building new homes”.
“The NSW government has adopted a better practice when it comes to consent conditions to see better results and more homes built faster,” Scully concluded.
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