Amendments to NSW planning bill "spell disaster" for the state: UDIA

Stephen TaylorDecember 7, 2020

Party politics has trumped what is best for the NSW economy and the need to adequately cater for population growth, according to the Urban Development Institute of Australia (NSW).

This follows a host of amendments to the state’s planning bill which the UDIA says “spell disaster for NSW’’.

“In their pursuit to discredit each other, politicians have lost sight of the big picture,” chief executive Stephen Albin said.

“The NSW population is projected to more than double over the next 50 years, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

“Instead of catering to this growth, MPs are considering how to stop growth by making unreasonable, uncommercial and uncompetitive amendments to the Bill – it makes no sense.’’

Albin said more people would be needing jobs that come from construction and businesses within new commercial centres, and housing. “We need to deliver more than 40,000 more homes per year to keep up with demand.

“Industry can’t supply these homes under the current Act because outdated and impractical processes make it incredibly challenging.”

Albin said the amendments proposed by other parties would put the state in an even worse position. “The amendments proposed by the Opposition threaten to take NSW even further back to dark ages,” he said.

“To think that someone living 10km away could challenge your home extension in the Land and Environment Court is absurd. And to require a developer to improve - not retain - biodiversity on a site is equally unreasonable.”

Albin said NSW already had “the most uncompetitive approval system in Australia’’ and that much of the recent recovery in the market had been a result of expectations that changes were ‘’going to be made’’.

“Overall, the situation we find ourselves in is bad for industry and first home buyers who are already struggling to get into the market and our economy.”

staylor@propertyobserver.com.au

Editor's Picks