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

By Megan Gorrey

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”.

The government wants to increase supply of low- and mid-rise housing in Sydney and surrounding regions.

The government wants to increase supply of low- and mid-rise housing in Sydney and surrounding regions.Credit: Oscar Colman

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.

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“Who will be making those calls? Will it be a private certifier paid for by the developer?

“[CDC]’s have typically been for one or two-storey buildings, they haven’t been for larger scale developments and that’s because they are more complex both during construction and after.”

Waverley councillor Paula Masselos agreed that “the bigger the buildings, the more complex they are”, and she believed any move to give higher-density developments access to fast-tracked approvals would be “highly unpalatable to the community” and “asking for a whole lot of trouble”.

“To have complying developments where there is no accountability when we’re already seeing developers ‘try it on’ – the community is not going to swallow it.”

Masselos said the state’s residential building quality crisis had highlighted “a lot of challenges with private certifiers”, and said there would need to be clear conditions were CDCs to be expanded.

“You want to ensure the buildings don’t fall down, that public and residential amenity is respected, that the community is brought along.”

Planning Institute of Australia national policy director John Brockhoff said more complex or higher-risk developments required a bespoke assessment process, or master planning for the surrounding area to mitigate risks such as overshadowing or privacy concerns.

The state government is preparing to launch its “pattern book” designs  for a mid-rise apartment block by Andrew Burges Architects.

The state government is preparing to launch its “pattern book” designs for a mid-rise apartment block by Andrew Burges Architects.Credit: NSW government

“We don’t want over-assessment of very low-risk development, so we always support having a CDC process for houses.

“Once you get into high-complexity, high-impact [proposals], then you really have to demonstrate that there’s a logic for having that complying development approach, and you have to manage those risks in some other way, typically through a precinct masterplan or some block design work.”

Brockhoff said the NSW Housing Pattern Book, which the government will launch next week with designs and guidelines to accelerate the construction of terraces, semis, manor houses and small units in blocks of two to six storeys, would also probably reduce some of those risks.

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Brockhoff said the institute had developed some hybrid models for processes between complying development and full merit-based assessment which they had presented to the state government.

“It’s not just a matter of one or the other, there’s some reform to get the best of both worlds.”

Housing Industry Association NSW executive director Brad Armitage said expanding eligibility for the complying development process would free up councils to assess more complex proposals.

“Based on data from the NSW government, councils took 158 days to approve new medium-density developments. For complying development, it is an average of just 40 days, which is nearly four times faster for the same type of development.”

Property Council of Australia NSW executive director Katie Stevenson said its members had been pushing the state government for changes to fast-track straightforward housing projects.

“Reducing planning bottlenecks through this targeted reform could unlock new supply, improve feasibility, and bring more homes to market at a time when housing demand has never been higher.”

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Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-wants-to-build-more-apartment-blocks-with-faster-approvals-councils-aren-t-convinced-20250711-p5me6y.html