Unlocking the NSW Planning System Reforms Bill: What you need to know

These are amendments, as opposed to starting fresh with a new Act. They don’t present a radical shift in how planning is done in NSW, but they aim to deliver greater consistency and clarity for both the development industry and the community.

The Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, states: “The bill creates a planning system that is faster, fairer, modern and more capable of delivering the homes, jobs, productivity, investment and infrastructure that New South Wales needs, without overturning the fundamentals.”

While the intent is clear, the practical implications for applicants, councils, agencies, and communities will only become apparent once the reforms are made and implemented.

To help navigate what’s coming, we’ve highlighted five key insights, outlining the opportunities, risks, and what to watch out for as the reforms take shape.

1. Development Coordination Authority (DCA) – Streamlining agency input

The DCA will centralise and simplify agency consultation for both development applications and planning proposals. Multiple NSW agencies are required to issue general terms of approval or provide concurrence, often creating duplication, delay, and uncertainty for proponents.

The intent of the DCA is to cut through this complexity by becoming the single point of coordination. 

This change could be a circuit breaker to stalled agency consultation. If implemented successfully, the DCA could shorten approval timeframes that would otherwise be impacted by slow or inconsistent referral processes. This could provide benefit to projects that require referrals to multiple government agencies with overlapping interests.

To deliver the promised efficiency, the DCA must be empowered to make decisions and apply agency expertise consistently balancing different agency interests, rather than acting as a “post-box” or becoming an administrative bottleneck.

We recommend the DCA:

• Expand on the Planning Concierge / Planning Delivery Unit model to facilitate projects stuck in the system, but with the added decision-making authority to make decisions and not just act as a referral post-box.
• Have go-to contacts in Agencies or be resourced with seconded specialists from key Agencies (heritage, environment, water, etc.) rather than relying solely on planning staff to allow real-time responsiveness and information at hand.
• Prioritise practical solutions that facilitate delivery, rather than defaulting to process heavy engagement. Duplication should be removed and GTAs made consistent.
• Be transparent in enforcing statutory deadlines for agency responses and step in where Agencies fail to meet them. The DCA should be able to issue GTAs if agency timeframes are notmet.
• Provide guidance and technical advice to local councils managing complex referrals.
• Track performance of Agency consultation and regularly review the effectiveness of conditions proposed.

2. Housing Delivery Authority – Embedded and permanent

HDA is here to stay.

The HDA has been operating as a panel under the EP&A Act through a Ministerial Order, however, is now proposed to be formally established as an authority in the legislation.

The Planning Minister has positioned the change as a measure to provide greater certainty and confidence for proponents of large housing projects, ensuring these can access a State significant pathway. This reinforces the HDA’s role as a dedicated mechanism to prioritise housing under the National Housing Accord and now beyond.

We have seen the HDA evolve since its inception and it has been a game-changer in unlocking opportunity for large-scale housing across NSW, including within commercial areas, industrial land, and at shopping centres. The streamlined nature of SSDAs with a concurrent rezoning will ensure the delivery of large-scale housing projects (which also contribute towards the delivery of affordable housing). 

This pathway has been welcomed by the property industry.  It’s still unclear whether the planning pathway under the HDA will be retained post-National Housing Accord in its current form.

The HDA could be a successful model for other sectors to also fast track delivery of jobs and certainty of investment in NSW.

3. Targeted Assessment Development – Code Assessed?

A new TAD pathway is proposed, aimed at filling the gap between fast tracked Complying Development system and a full DA assessment process. The Planning Minister has described this as a way to reduce duplication, particularly where issues have already been resolved through upfront strategic planning or through the establishment of specific development controls.

In practice, we see this pathway as potentially allowing certain types of development to bypass unnecessary steps or where key site-specific matters have already been addressed (e.g. repeat public exhibition or duplicate concurrence requirements).

The framework would allow for a more code-based, outcome-focused approach, with consent authorities restricted from re-assessing matters such as significant impacts, site suitability, or the public interest – unless those issues are specifically called up in an EPI, DCP, or Planning Agreement.

It’s promising in theory and this framework could be a key pathway for the inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI) in planning assessment.

However, it will depend on the detail of a future SEPP or SEPP amendments that define what qualifies as targeted assessment development and what requirements under the new regulations may be ‘switched off’ for assessment. A key risk will be that without alignment across all levels of the statutory planning framework, it just adds another layer to the complex NSW planning system.

If implemented effectively, targeted assessment could be a game-changer, offering a middle ground that accelerates low-risk projects, frees up council resources, and provides greater certainty to proponents. But the real test will be whether government has the appetite to turn off existing controls and streamline DCPs so that the pathway delivers the speed and clarity being promised.

4. Regional and District Panels Unwound – Local Panels Elevated

Independent decision-making has long been a critical function of the NSW planning system. It provides a check against local political pressures, ensures that significant projects are independently assessed on their merits, and helps maintain confidence in planning outcomes.

The bill’s proposal to remove the regional significant development pathway and unwind the state-appointed district and regional planning panels marks a major shift away from this model, moving more decision-making power back to local councils and their appointed local planning panels.

The regional and district panels generally determine development valued at over $30 million, in addition to undertaking rezoning review functions with state-appointed members holding the majority and chairing roles. They have often supported development when councils have provided negative recommendations, particularly where projects respond to broader state objectives like housing, social infrastructure or employment needs.

In our experience, the regional and district panels provide many benefits, including:

• Clear and transparent processes.
• Ability to review and discuss conditions of consent prior to determination avoiding the need for minor issue modifications post-approval.
• Publication of decisions aligned with KPIs around timeframes.
• Pragmatic independent decision making for large-scale developments with significant community interest.
• Benefit certain sectors with no SSDA pathway or high SSDA EDC threshold (e.g. retail and schools).

While the NSW Government has flagged updating the referral criteria so that only genuinely significant matters go to panels, the removal of regional and district panels will necessitate changes to the function of local planning panels to ensure that large-scale and regionally significant projects can still be determined effectively.

We recommend the following changes:

• Shift appointments away from councils alone and give DPHI or an independent body the role in selecting or endorsing members (beyond just chairs), reducing the risk of political influence.
• Amend panel membership to ensure consistent access to state-level expertise in housing, urban design, infrastructure, and environmental planning – like what district and regional panels brought.
• Standardise and potentially raise the triggers for matters going to Local Planning Panels, so they focus on regionally significant development. Base this on the scale or type of development, rather than the number of submissions received.
• Adopt early proponent briefing practices to confirm key issues, as well as assessment timeframes and indicative determination dates, maintaining accountability for applicants and consent authorities.
• Implement a process for reviewing and discussing conditions of consent prior to determination to ensure transparency and minimise unnecessary modifications.
• Maintain published reasons for decisions and introduce benchmarking and annual reporting to demonstrate consistency across regions.

Questions remain on how rezoning reviews for planning proposals will be managed without regional and district panels, and how independence can be maintained when local planning panel members are appointed, and can be removed, by a local council.

If local planning panels are to assume the responsibilities previously held by regional and district panels, they will require greater independence, broader expertise, different threshold criteria and clear mechanisms to ensure consistency and quality in decision-making across council boundaries.

5. Statewide Community Participation Plan – towards consistency

At present, every local council in NSW prepares its own community participation plan, setting out how and when development applications must be notified. This has led to a patchwork system where exhibition requirements vary widely between LGAs.

We welcome the introduction of a single, statewide community participation plan to be prepared and delivered by the Planning Secretary. This reform has been framed by the Planning Minister as commonsense, bringing consistency and efficiency, protecting community participation for the issues that matter most.

Certainty around timeframes, including consistent public exhibition requirements based on the scale of development, is crucial for fostering trust and transparency in the planning process. We support a single plan that details a tiered, proportionate, and outcomes focused approach to consultation.

We recommend the statewide community participation plan include:

• Consistent public exhibition requirements based on the scale and impact of development, with the aim of making community participation more meaningful, targeted, and efficient.
• Clarification of unique submissions and ensuring that only one submission per household is counted and that separate submissions from one individual are not counted across different exhibition periods if the same matters are raised. This approach will help prevent skewed ‘number of submissions’ and ensure that the voices of a diverse range of community members are heard and considered in the decision-making process, reflecting the true interests and concerns of the community.
• Modification to development applications should be able to be determined under delegation in accordance with the original application, removing the requirement to go to back to a planning panel for decision, even if it is a contentious application.

Implementing these measures will ensure that community feedback is accurately represented and that the consultation process remains fair and transparent.

What to watch out for

While the 2025 Planning System Reforms Bill offers a significant opportunity to streamline the planning system, fully realising its benefits will likely require further updates to existing SEPPs, planning guidance, and internal processes. This could involve the introduction of new SEPPs or amendments to existing instruments to reflect the changes, particularly the focus on new Objects of the Act.

The bill will now progress through the parliamentary process, with several stages before it becomes law. Amendments are likely to occur which may influence the final operation of the reforms.

Urbis will be keeping across these changes. We encourage you to reach out to our planning team to discuss strategies and next steps.