Changes to Planning Panels
The NSW Government has made changes to the way Sydney and Regional Planning Panels work to make them more efficient and to improve the assessment and determination times of development applications.
The changes have been made as part of the Planning Acceleration Program to support the state’s immediate and long-term economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
The changes, commenced on 1 August 2020, will speed up panel determinations by:
- reducing the need to conduct public panel meetings for non-contentious matters by applying a ‘10-or-more’ objection trigger for public meetings
- reducing the amount of modifications going to panels
- obliging panel chairs to more actively manage development applications (DAs) coming to the panels to reduce panel deferrals and assessment timeframes
- allowing chairs to bring forward determination on DAs that are experiencing unreasonable delays of over 180 days from lodgement
- introducing panel performance measures.
An Information Sheet with further details about the changes and Frequently Asked Questions is available here