Premier Chris Minns outlined a range of new announcements to boost housing supply through a range of new measures to increase transparency, encourage faster assessment of projects and promote quality design and construction.
The government is developing a pattern book of endorsed housing designs for both low-rise and mid-rise (up to six storeys) buildings, scrapping the site-specific competitions for every development.
The NSW Government Architect, Abbie Galvin, is leading a process of developing the pre-approved list of designs, alongside established private-sector architects, as well as the community, as part of a consultation process.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said the government will also publish housing completions in comparison to other States –a form of league table – so the citizens of New South Wales can track completions across borders and compare it to New South Wales.
Property Council NSW Executive Director Katie Stevenson said Premier Minns also acknowledged industry concerns that NSW lags behind our neighbours when it comes to assessment timeframes and will now be publishing comparisons against other states.
“This is key to delivering a faster, more certain and transparent planning system and ensuring NSW is an attractive environment for investment, and is a move we strongly support,” Ms Stevenson said.
“Premier Minns is saying all the right things when it comes to setting up the planning system to deliver the necessary projects to make it easier for families looking to rent or buy a home in NSW.
“Introducing greater performance monitoring into the planning system is a sensible step to turbocharge state and local government assessment of projects that will be key to delivering new homes and compare how we are tracking against our interstate counterparts,” she said.
Ms Stevenson said the property industry “will welcome the news today that high-rise developments in key areas close to public transport will not be subject to onerous design competitions, which will slash assessment timeframes”.
“Unfortunately, site by site design competitions have added substantial delays to the planning system and it’s good to see that government is retaining commitment to design excellence while moving to a more efficient model,” she said.
The news comes as many look forward to seeing further details of the NSW Government’s housing reform package after a raft of housing related announcements in the past few weeks.
The government recently announced it is set to revamp the maintenance approach for 95,000 social housing properties in the state. It also announced a significant enhancement in the authority and resources allocated to the NSW Building Commission.