Councils are already doing everything they can to solve the housingcrisis.
This was in a response to Business Council of Australia (BCA)’s calls for better performance from local authorities as part of a list of recommendations to improve housing supply.
According to LGNSW President Darriea Turley AM in their press release:
…the Business Council of Australia’s assertion that there was “not enough accountability and balance of opinion in the local council approval system” was incorrect.
The proof? That Councils overwhelmingly approve DAs – at the rate of 97% – and that they aren’t responsible for housing delivery.
🎯The defensive response from LGNSW misses the point. BCA is calling for improvements to accountability, timeliness and attitude – entirely in line with development industry advocacy for years – not that planning should be eliminated. The LGNSW response makes no mention of timeframes or reasonableness of process.
The fact that DAs eventually get approved is irrelevant if: • they take years longer than they should; or • the conditions issued are unworkable or add considerable cost
Time is critically important to #feasibility – the longer approvals take, the higher the risk all the assumptions about the project change – just like we’ve seen over the last few years with construction costs and interest rates. This makes doing our job of actually delivering the development much more difficult.
Not to mention that the DA is only one, albeit very important part, of the planning process. There is no mention of Council’s role in construction approvals or timeliness in delivering subdivision certificate.
📋Many DAs in NSW involve trivial matters like fences, pools or single dwellings, in contrast to other jurisdictions. I suggest if that DA approval data was broken out into multi-dwelling applications only, the approval stats would look considerably less favourable.
Disappointingly, this tells me the NSW Local Government sector does not truly appreciate the pivotal role they need to play to help resolve the housing challenge and get us closer to hitting those #housingtargets .
🤔The NSW Government is absolutely right to be taking a hard look at Local Council performance. As should every state.