Posted on January 9, 2025 by Liam Mulligan
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ALERT: Housing Development Authority up and running in 2025
In late 2024, we blogged about the announcement of the new Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) by the NSW state government (see here). The HDA is now operational, having been established on 19 December 2024 by the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Housing Delivery Authority) Order 2024 (HDA Order).
The HDA Order constitutes the HDA as a panel under s 2.3(2) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) and sets out the panel’s functions. These include to exercise such functions under the EPA Act as may be delegated to the HDA but, as at the date of this post, the delegation to the panel has not been published.
The HDA’s specific functions also include providing advice, recommendations, and reports to the Minister and to other public authorities regarding residential housing and supply. In particular, the HDA will make recommendations to the Minister about the declaration of specific residential developments as State-significant development (SSD), and about the rezoning of land for residential or other purposes. The HDA will not determine development applications but its functions do include liaising with public authorities about the giving of concurrences, approvals, advices or referrals (under the EPA Act or other legislation) necessary to enable or assist persons to carry out residential development.
In summary, the HDA has been established to oversee and administer a new “state-led approval pathway” for major residential development projects, including projects requiring a concurrent rezoning. The pathway will be available for projects having an estimated development cost of $60m or more (for projects in Greater Sydney) and $30m or more outside of Greater Sydney. The substance of the pathway is that the HDA will recommend to the Minister that particular projects be declared SSD, with the Department to then issue Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs) on an accelerated basis (stated to be within 7 days of the Minister’s declaration). Applicants are then to lodge a DA for the project, based on the SEARs, which the Department (according to the HDA website) hopes to determine within a maximum of 275 days.
In addition to the HDA Order, the Terms of Reference, and Operational Procedures for the HDA, the assessment criteria for Expressions of Interest under the HDA pathway have now been published (HDA Criteria). The HDA Criteria set out both the high level objectives of the scheme and the specific assessment criteria that projects will need to satisfy in order to utilise the HDA pathway.
The HDA Criteria indicate that the scheme will be geared towards identified high yield forms of development – multi-dwelling housing, residential flat buildings, seniors housing, and shop-top housing – and will give preference to those projects which can demonstrate an ability both to lodge a DA quickly once issued with SEARS (i.e. within 9 months) and commence construction quickly once approved (within 12 months of the approval date). However, there is nothing in the HDA Criteria indicating any requirement to actually commence development within that period.
Preference will also be given to applications which are largely compliant with existing planning controls and one of the stated criteria for eligibility is that the proposal not exceed any applicable development standard by more than 20%. It appears that, where an application does exceed a development standard by more than 20% it will be required to lodge a concurrent rezoning application to amend the applicable controls, which can also be done via the HDA pathway.
Additionally, the HDA Criteria preference sites which are free of environmental constraints – projects within the flood planning area, on bushfire prone land, or within environmentally sensitive areas (as defined in the EPA Regulation) are expressed not to be eligible for the program. However, the HDA Criteria document expressly indicates that the HDA will be required to apply the HDA Criteria flexibly and so it remains to be seen whether and to what extent these site suitability criteria will be strictly enforced.
Expressions of interest opened on 8 January 2025 and the HDA will meet for the first time to consider submitted applications on 7 February 2025.
You can find copies of the relevant documents here:
Environmental Planning and Assessment (Housing Delivery Authority) Order 2024
HDA Expressions of Interest Assessment Criteria
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