In September the NSW government presented legislation to radically rewrite the planning legislation in the form of the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Planning Systems Reform) Bill 2025 that received royal assent on 11 November. Some amendments were made in the Upper House that reduce some of the scary outcomes but there are still many aspects that are of serious concern, particularly in relation to environmental assessment.
The legislation is passed but there will be opportunities to comment on regulations and planning policies that will give effect to the Act.
The main features of the changes in the Environment Planning and Assessment Act are outlined here. This is all very technical and the implications will be understood over time.
Objectives
New objectives have been added. Objective (a) is now:
To promote the social and economic welfare of the community and a better environment by the proper management, development and conservation of the state’s natural and other resources.
Objective (g) has been amended to include the ‘protection of the health and safety of the occupants of buildings’ as an object of the Act.
These objectives sound all very good but it is not clear how a better environment can be achieved when many of the developments and zoning will receive less scrutiny.
Bushfire
The initial draft bill removed the need for a consent authority to be satisfied that certain development on bushfire prone land conforms to Planning for Bushfire Protection, and for a Rural Fire Certificate to be issued to attest to that conformity. Fortunately common sense prevailed and this has now been reinstated – after the Black Summer bushfires how could such a change have been contemplated?
Housing Delivery Authority (HDA)
The HDA that was set up as temporary agency in January 2025 to facilitate the higher density housing developments is now formally incorporated into the NSW planning system. It examines major housing proposals and determines if they should be treated as state significant developments (SSD).
We already have a huge number of SSD projects undergoing assessment by the HDA especially in the TOD areas from Roseville to Gordon. According to the Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment, in the first half of this year, 27 projects for over 4700 dwellings have been submitted. State wide, according to the Planning Department website, there have been 289 proposals amounting to more than 98,200 potential homes have been declared state significant.
Of concern is the power given to the HDA to expedite amendments to environmental planning instruments, such as local environment plans which the HDA considers ‘reasonably necessary’.
Such amendments could include spot rezoning that would have previously gone through a planning proposal process that provides for community consultation or external accountability. Site-specific rezoning with no safeguards is a major corruption risk that ICAC has repeatedly warned against.
Complying development variations
There is a new pathway to allow minor deviations from development standards (such as setbacks or landscaping requirements) without needing a full development application. Instead, a variation is assessed and approved through a fast-track variation certificate which must be issued by the council or a certifier within a specific timeframe (e.g. 10 or 20 days), otherwise it is deemed approved.
This could make the impact of the ‘McMansion’ complying developments on our streetscapes and tree canopy even worse.
Targeted Assessment Pathway (TAP)
If a council has a strategic plan and a consultation process in place larger developments can be processed via a new targeted assessment pathway. This is similar to complying development, which would prohibit consideration of environmental impacts, public interest or site suitability.
It is possible that this could be applied to low to mid-rise development near local centres such as Turramurra and St Ives; terraces and manor houses within 800 m and residential flats of up to 8 storeys in medium density zones within 400 m.
Removal of regional planning panels with only local panels to remain
This also applies to the Independent Planning Commission. Assessment will be made by panels that could have less experience and expertise.
Development Coordination Authority
Development applications that require referrals for expert advice and approvals from authorities such as the EPA, NPWS and Sydney Water will now be handled by the Development Coordination Authority. It 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. It is required to safeguard against the weakening of environmental protections and standards but it will have a huge workload.
The idea is to speed up the approvals process for larger developments but will there be enough time given to carry out proper surveys of threatened species, especially if they are only seen or flower in limited time periods?
The Act removes the requirement to consult with the head of the Environment Department before making an environmental planning instrument that would adversely affect critical habitat or threatened species, populations or ecological communities, or their habitats (by omitting s 3.25 of the Act). Unlike other changes to referral requirements in the bill, this specific referral requirement is being removed entirely (not transferred to the Development Coordination Authority).
Impact assessment
Under environmental impact assessment the requirements will be weakened so that only ‘significant’ likely impacts are considered instead of all likely impacts. This change may prevent the consideration of impacts material to the community, or cumulatively significant.
For infrastructure type developments the determining authorities currently is required to take into account to the ‘fullest extent possible’ matters affecting or likely to affect the environment. This has been weakened to taking into account matters in a manner that is ‘proportionate to the nature and risk of the activity’. This seems to eliminate consideration of the precautionary principle and is not an objective definition.
Conclusion
Together, these changes significantly weaken environmental and community protection, and disempower decision-makers from properly considering the impacts of all developments.
There needs to be responsive consultation on the regulations and planning policies (LEPs etc) that will give effect to the Act.