Posted on September 17, 2025 by Liam Mulligan and Sinead Macauley

ALERT: Bill to reform the NSW planning system and amend the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act

This morning, the New South Wales government announced a potentially sweeping set of changes to the existing planning system. The ministerial press release came ahead of the first print and indicated that the proposed NSW Planning System Reforms Bill 2025 will seek to significantly increase the speed and efficiency of development assessment. The release notes that the “level of assessment required for simple developments is disproportionate to their impact on communities” and it appears that the bulk of the reforms will be aimed at simplifying and speeding up assessment processes.

What we know so far

The Planning System Reforms Bill 2025 has just been tabled, but the major points of interest identified (as described in the press release) are:

  • Establishing the Development Coordination Authority, a “single front door” which will provide advice on development applications and planning proposals on behalf of all NSW Government agencies.
  • Expanding Complying Development, giving councils 10 days to approve small variations on a complying development application, or have it deemed approved.
  • Introducing a new ‘Targeted Assessment Pathway’, bridging the gap between a full development assessment and Complying Development, for types of development where strategic planning and community consultation has already taken place.
  • Improve the standards and requirements on Development Applications (DA) to make sure planning assessments are proportionate to the scale and complexity of development.
  • Standardise conditions to provide more certainty and speed up construction once approvals are granted.
  • Amend the objects of the EP&A Act to include housing delivery, climate resilience and proportionality in planning decisions for the first time.
  • Create a consistent approach to community consultations across the state by establishing a single, state-wide Community Participation Plan for NSW.
  • Remove the regionally significant development pathway and regional planning panels that have created unnecessary duplication and delays in planning decisions.
  • Update appeal options and review processes to encourage disputes to be resolved outside of the Land and Environment Court.

This is an ambitious agenda and many of these reforms – such as the standardisation of conditions, amendments to appeals processes, and expansion of complying development – could be achieved in numerous ways. We are currently reviewing the text of the Bill and will release a further blog considering its content and evaluating whether the specifics of the reforms are likely to be effective in practice in the coming days.

You can now read the full text of the Bill here: Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025.

You can read the Ministerial Release here: https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/planning-system-reform-to-help-build-nsws-future.

If you have any questions regarding this article, please leave a comment below or contact Liam Mulligan on 02 8235 9715.

3 replies on “ALERT: Bill to reform the NSW planning system and amend the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act”

  1. Ralph Tambasco says:
    September 18, 2025 at 4:43 pm

    It’s about time!! I’m a Building Certifier and Planner and I’ve been in Local Government for 45 years and have been a Contractor for 11 years and still ” in the game” today. I’ve been saying to numerous “clients” for many years that the NSW Planning system would have to be the most complicated in Australia, if not the World!! I tell people that, on one hand, Politicians say they “will cut red tape” but at the same time, these clowns give us additional requirements on the other hand, as we all know!. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a simpler NSW planning system, as long as they don’t give us additional legislative requirements. Only time will tell.

  2. Philip Carroll says:
    September 18, 2025 at 5:38 pm

    Design Review Panels should also be abolished.
    Large and mid-sized councils should employ an architect, landscape architect and urban designer to assist with setting guidelines (DCP requirements), provide pre-lodgement advise inhouse and assist with working through the assessment.
    Planners should also have better knowledge of what good design is through appropriate training. Unfortunately, process has overtaken outcomes!

  3. Michael Brewer says:
    September 27, 2025 at 10:40 pm

    Here! Here! Phil. You are spot on. There are a fair few DRP’s that think they are a law unto themselves and come up with purely subjective demands. Having heard the Minister speak again on Thursday at the NSW State PIA Conference, I am increasingly hopeful that we can get back to a far simpler planning system. I mentioned to a couple of younger planners at the conference that in my time, as the number of “heads of consideration” have decreased from what it was under S. 90 of the EP&A Act and S. 333 of the Local Government Act 1919, to S. 79C to S. 4.15, the complexity has increased

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