Real estate red tape: Planning system overhauled to fix Sydney’s affordability crisis

EXCLUSIVE: Red tape which holds up housing developments will be blasted out under reforms to help fix Sydney’s real estate affordability crisis.

• ROB STOKES: REVIVING THE GREAT AUSSIE DREAM
• PM BLAMES COUNCIL RED TAPE FOR THE CRISIS

THE state’s planning system is set for its biggest overhaul in a generation as politicians scramble to fix Sydney’s housing affordability crisis.

With pressure building for solutions, Planning Minister Rob Stokes has unveiled a series of new laws to fast-track development and get more homes on the market.

Draft legislation includes sweeping new powers for the planning department to override other agencies — such as the Rural Fire Service — taking too long to approve development.

The minister will also get new powers to impose independent planning panels on some councils, especially those suspected of corruption or dubious decision making, to handle major development applications.

Draft legislation includes sweeping new powers for the planning department to override other agencies — such as the Rural Fire Service — taking too long to approve development.

“Sydney families are spending as much as 65 per cent of their income on rent, when the old rule of thumb was 30 per cent,” Mr Stokes writes in an exclusive column in today’s The Daily Telegraph.

“We’ve turned it around before, and we can do it again. At the outbreak of WWII, Australia faced a housing shortage of more than 120,000 houses — with the majority of that shortfall in NSW.

“Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies knew that addressing this housing shortage would be vital in rebuilding Australia after the war.”

Under the overhaul, the Planning Assessment Commission — which handles significant development applications — will have its final “review” stage scrapped, meaning it will only have to make one decision rather than the current baffling multistage process.

Developers will also be ordered to consult residents close to significant new developments before plans are formally lodged with councils — preventing delays.

And building regulations will also be simplified. ­Further measures include standardising the bewildering array of development rules across councils and streamlining the planning process for terraced homes and new properties on some greenfield sites.

NSW Minister for Planning Rob Stokes said Sydney families are spending as much as 65 per cent of their income on rent. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The raft of measures come after Prime Minister Malcolm Turbull told The Daily Telegraph last month that the biggest issue to housing affordability was council red tape. Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison has also declared the housing affordability crisis one of 2017’s biggest issues — taking aim at the wasteful spending by governments after previously demanding states slash red tape in the planning system.

Yet Opposition planning spokesman Michael Daley has slammed the Baird government proposals and said new homes will simply be snapped up by investors.

“This will do very little, if anything to address the current housing affordability crisis,” he said.

Sydney property prices rocketed another 15.5 per cent in 2016, following years of significant increases. Despite claims to the contrary, the Baird government has not put significant downward pressure on prices and the average Sydney home now costs a whopping $852,000.

Under the new measures, the process for appealing rejected development applications will be sped up and new avenues for appeal created, avoiding costly court cases. There will also be greater transparency in the rules around developer contributions to local infrastructure. The state’s old ‘Part 3A’ rules, which exempted some major developments from normal planning laws, including protection from judicial reviews, are being totally scrapped.

The laws were repealed in 2011 but some developers, who got buildings approved under the old laws, were still able to make modifications to those properties under the old ­system.