NSW wants to build more apartment blocks with faster approvals. Councils aren't convinced

The Age

4 days ago

Potential planning reforms that would enable terrace homes and apartment blocks up to six storeys to bypass the local council development application process have been criticised by councillors as 'reckless' and 'unpalatable' as NSW grapples with the fallout of the building crisis.
As the state government forges ahead with an ambitious policy agenda to boost housing stock, The Daily Telegraph on Friday reported that NSW Labor was considering changes to enable terraces, townhouses, and apartment blocks up to six storeys to be deemed 'complying developments'.
Complying development certificates (CDCs) certify that a proposed development is consistent with certain criteria or standards, enabling a project to gain planning approval without going through the more extensive development application process. They are typically issued by accredited private certifiers.
Acting Premier Ryan Park said the government had not announced or decided on any such reforms, but he was 'not going to make apologies … for trying to get the next generation into homes'.
Senior Liberal sources told the Herald in May that changes to the complying development certificates process, which would remove councils' ability to assess projects on merit, were among numerous measures the government was considering to speed up the delivery of homes.
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North Sydney mayor Zoe Baker believed expanding the scheme would be 'reckless when we're still dealing with a building quality crisis for the state government to consider expanding what private certifiers are doing'.
'When you think about the four and six-storey residential flat buildings that have been made permissible through the low and mid-rise housing reforms across Sydney, Newcastle and the Illawarra, that's a huge amount of development that would be approved by the private sector.'
Baker said apartment blocks typically required plans and conditions around construction traffic management, waste and operating hours, which were finalised during the assessment process.