Significant reforms to the NSW planning system proposed

The NSW Minister for Planning recently introduced the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 (Bill), which proposes the most significant amendments to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) for some time.

The EPA Act is now 45 years old and one of the most amended pieces on legislation in NSW. It is regularly criticised, with the NSW planning system generally, for being overly complicated and stifling the delivery of much needed new housing.

The Bill is another piece in the NSW Government strategy to address the housing supply shortage in NSW and proposes a number of amendments designed to deliver housing quicker.

The Bill is also said to be aimed at streamlining and modernising the EPA Act.

The key reforms of the Bill, which was passed by Legislative Assembly on 16 October 2025 with only minor amendments, are summarised in the following.

The Reforms

1. New objectives

The objectives of an Act of Parliament essentially provide the underlying purposes or guiding principles for the Act. They are important to the interpretation of the Act.

So, making matters part of the objectives of the EPA Act will in theory raise the prominence of such matters and add weight to the consideration they are to be given in decision-making processes under the EPA Act.

Following the agreed amendments, the Bill now includes new objectives to promote:

• supply, delivery and maintenance of housing (including affordable housing)

• productivity through the development and management of the State and its resources

• resilience to climate change and natural disasters through adaption, mitigation, preparedness and prevention

• a proportionate and risk-based approach to environmental planning and assessment.

Particularly in relation to the objective to supply and deliver housing, this is a clear prompt by the State Government to consent authorities that the provision of new housing generally should be an aim and facilitated accordingly.

The inclusion of a new objective focusing on productivity is also, in our view, a prompt towards encouraging development generally.

The new objective relating to climate change reflects contemporary thinking on the importance of the subject and the new objective on proportionate and risk-based assessment suggests environmental planning decisions should not get bogged down by minor issues.

2. New authorities

Housing Delivery Authority

The Bill seeks to enshrine in the EPA Act the Housing Delivery Authority (HDA).

The HDA was established as a “panel”, pursuant to section 2.3 of the EPA Act, in December 2024 for the purpose of providing a streamlined pathway for State significant development (SSD).

Since the start of 2025, the Minister has declared 240 proposals as SSD through the HDA pathway.

The Bill seeks to elevate and permanently embed the HDA in the EPA Act. It will remain an optional pathway but will, the Minister says, give confidence to proponents of large development projects that those projects will be assessed in the SSD pathway, with “clear time frames and greater certainty”.

Development Coordination Authority

The Bill also seeks to establish a new Development Coordination Authority (DCA).

The DCA is intended to improve efficiencies associated with referrals to numerous State agencies, something that has long been seen as a significant contributor to the prolonging of development assessment timeframes.

The DCA is said to be a centralisation of decision-making and advising on referrals that would currently go to the various State agencies and will comprise the Planning Secretary and experts from the various State agencies. It will be authorised to “exercise the function as if it were the approval body”, including issuing general terms of approval, but also required to safeguard against the weakening of environmental protections and standards.

It will be interesting to see whether this reform genuinely streamlines the referrals process or adds another set of hands through which referrals must pass.

3. Amendments to update and streamline

In his second reading speech to the Legislative Assembly, Minister Scully referred to the planning system spending “… a disproportionate amount of time and resources assessing low-risk proposals and debating relatively minor issues that are often immaterial to the outcome”.

The Bill proposes a number of amendments which are aimed at reducing the focus on low-risk proposal and minor issues.

Changes to complying development

The Bill proposes to expand the complying development pathway.

Most notably, the original concept for a proposed complying development – that it must comply with all relevant and applicable standards – will be relaxed and an ability to vary certain standards will be introduced.

Councils will decide on variations via ‘variation certificates’ but will have to do so within minimum timeframes (of 10 days or 20 days where it is the issuing authority) or else the variation will be deemed to be approved.

An ability to consider minor variations, without such automatically rendering an otherwise compliant development as needing a full DA, is a positive.

But it will likely test council resources given the short turnaround times. The extent of documentation, justification and merit assessment involved in an application for a variation required is also unclear at this stage.

With no right of appeal, there is also a risk that councils will prefer to refuse variations rather than risk deemed approvals.

The process for modifying a complying development certificate – to focus on the modifications only and not require a complete re-examination of the overall development – will also be implemented. This should improve efficiencies associated with modifying certificates.

Model Community Participation Plans

A Model Community Participation Plan is proposed to standardise how consent authorities undertake community participation in the development assessment process across NSW.

The Minister has said that as community participation plans (CCP) are currently prepared and adopted by each local council, there are over 100 in effect and this results in varying and inconsistent requirements from one local government area to the next.

Of course, there are already prescribed minimum advertising periods for certain development. It is instances where there are no prescribed periods, or where councils have adopted in excess of the prescribed period in a CCP, that the inconsistencies arise.

A change to the minimum requirements for community participation – particularly to a potential reduction or removal of participation for development applications (DA) for minor development and/or within the targeted assessment pathway (addressed below) – will require a transition of community expectations not dissimilar to changes that occurred with the advent of complying development.

Targeted assessment pathway 

The Bill proposes a new, targeted assessment development (TAD) pathway for local development.

The TAD pathway will, the Minister says, “bridge the gap” between processing times for complying development and DAs.

The TAD pathway is intended to reduce assessment timeframes by reducing duplication of assessment, public exhibition and/or concurrence requirements for certain developments. The Minister expects the TAD pathway could reduce assessment timeframes of certain developments by up to 50%.

This new pathway appears to resurrect and enhance the previously proposed “code assessment” proposal from a few years ago and is not dissimilar to the “fast-track” assessment process that many local councils have informally used for simple, non-impacting DAs.

In our opinion, a formal “fast-track” assessment process for straight-forward DAs should be welcomed but it will be interesting to see the development controls adopted and the type of development that can be accommodated between complying development and a DA assessment.

Consideration of “significant” impacts

The Bill will amend section 4.15(1)(b) to specifically require consideration of the ‘significant’ impacts of a proposed development, rather than (currently) the ‘likely’ impacts.

This change is aimed at moving the focus away from minor impacts but its success in doing so will rely on the interpretation of what is considered a ‘significant’ impact.

Clarification of development standards

The Bill will expand the definition of development standards to include any provisions of an environmental planning instrument (such as a State Environmental Planning Policy or a local environmental plan (LEP)) or regulation that are expressly identified as development standards.

The proposed new definition will add greater certainty to an issue that is frequently encountered by applicants, councils and the Land and Environment Court, as to what constitutes a “development standard”.

For example, a common legal argument has arisen around provisions of LEPs which permit development only subject to a numerical requirement, and whether the provision is thus a development standard or a prohibition.

This new definition, and corresponding amendments to LEPs, could put beyond doubt whether a provision is or is not a development standard.

Non-discretionary development standards

The Bill will clarify and expand the application of non-discretionary development standards.

In our experience, non-discretionary development standards continue to be misunderstood by some stakeholders that encounter them.

The Bill will confirm that a non-compliance with a non-discretionary development standard does not mean that:

• The development proposal must be refused; or

• The merit assessment to be undertaken can revert to more onerous corresponding standards of an environmental planning instrument or a development control plan.

Rather, the non-discretionary development standard is to be considered, more onerous standards are to be disregarded and consent can still be granted.

Conditions of consent

The Bill proposes two new approaches in relation to conditions of development consent:

• A requirement to consult with applicants for certain types of development (as yet unspecified) prior to finalising and imposing conditions; and

• The use of standard and model conditions prescribed in the regulations or a State environmental planning policy.

Consultation between a consent authority and an applicant prior to conditions being imposed will undoubtedly reduce instances of unreasonable or unnecessary conditions being imposed, and of applicants being surprised by requirements imposed on them in the grant of consent. That will likely reduce the work for both the consent authority and the applicant in dealing with such undesirable conditions, post the grant of consent.

However, how this will play out in practice remains to be seen.

There will be occasions where the consent authority and an applicant disagree on proposed conditions, and that might lead to disputes arising and delays in determinations.

Standard and model conditions have been on the agenda since at least 2021 (then proposed as “standard” and “bespoke” conditions) and will provide significant certainty and consistency to development consents across the various consent authorities.

They will also potentially limit any disagreements that could arise between consent authorities and applicants during the consultation phase and so these two changes should proceed together.

Changes to consent authorities

The Bill proposes to remove the ‘regionally significant’ development pathway and a staged removal of the consent authorities for such – the Sydney district planning panels and regional planning panels.

This will remove the middle layer of the planning system – between local development and State significant development – and will mean that development which does not meet the threshold for State significant development will return to local councils, for determination by local planning panels.

Presumably, some of those residential developments will be declared and processed through the Housing Delivery Authority.

A clearer pathway pyramid is welcomed as we have seen instances where merely determining the consent authority for a particular development is unclear.

However, concerns may arise over whether there are sufficient resources to administer the return of a significant number of large and potentially complex development applications to already busy local planning panel agendas. In line with other changes to move away from minor matters being given excessive attention, we expect a revision to criteria for referral to local planning panels.

Modifications

The Bill proposes changes to the provisions of the EPA Act relating to how development consent may be modified.

Of most significance are:

• Expanding modifications that may be dealt with under section 4.55(1) of the EPA Act to include modifications that the consent authority is satisfied have no environmental impact (as well as maintaining the correcting minor errors, misdescriptions or miscalculations);

• That those section 4.55(1) applications cannot be refused if not determined within 14 days of lodgement.

These changes will essentially relocate the “no impact” modifications from section 4.55(1A) of the EPA Act (having only been inserted there in May this year).

Again, these changes will increase the pressure on councils to assess and determine such applications within a short timeframe but should benefit developers needing to seek minor modifications during construction works.

We see the potential for disputes arising as to the interpretation of whether a proposed modification has any (or no) impacts and, thus, can be considered under the new section 4.55(1).

“Zombie consents”

The Bill proposes an expansion of powers to issue ‘complete works’ orders for so-called “zombie consents”.

The local council or the Planning Secretary will be able to issue ‘complete works’ order at any time after physical commencement to avoid construction sites falling idle for prolonged periods (as opposed to the existing regime for ‘complete works’ orders which requires councils to wait until the end of the period in which the consent would otherwise have lapsed).

This will likely bring relief to communities impacted by long-term and/or idle construction sites but may add pressures on developers that have had to furlough a development site.

Conclusion

The Bill provides a clear intent by the State government to facilitate the delivery of development through the streamlining of processes to speed up approvals.

We see the amendments as generally benefitting proponents of development and increasing the pressure on consent authorities, particularly councils, to make timely decisions.

Due to that, there may be a transitional period before the State’s intent comes through in practice and as is always the case with legislative reform, there are areas for new disputes to arise.

To understand how the NSW Planning Reforms Bill 2025 may impact your development projects or council processes, contact our planning team for tailored guidance.

Authors: Steven Griffiths, Monique Lewis, Angelina Gorgovski

 

This publication is intended as a source of information only. No reader should act on any matter without first obtaining professional advice.