Posted on November 18, 2024 by Bianca Crapis and Liam Mulligan 3

ALERT: New Housing Delivery Authority and Rezoning Process for Major Residential Housing Projects

On Friday, 15 November 2024, the NSW state government announced the establishment of a new state-led approval pathway for major residential housing projects, as well as a new “fast track” process for rezonings required to enable major housing projects.

To oversee the new approval pathway and rezoning process, a new authority – the Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) – has been announced. The NSW Government has indicated that these new reforms will come into effect in early 2025 – following a short period of consultation with stakeholders – but as yet detail as to how the HDA will work in practice is scant.

What is the new approvals pathway?

The first major announcements is the creation of a new approval pathway for major residential developments. This pathway – apparently intended to remove local councils from the assessment and determination process – will be available for new housing developments above an estimated development cost of $60 million (on average 100 or more homes) in Greater Sydney and a cost of approximately $30 million (on average 40 or more homes) in regional NSW.

The HDA – which it has been announced will sit within the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI) – will “oversee” this pathway but will seemingly not be established as a consent authority for the purposes of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (that function will remain with the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces).  Therefore, it appears that the functions of the HDA are likely to be administrative – likely including the assessment of major residential DAs – with the Minister retaining final responsibility for the determination of those DAs.

The HDA will include the Secretary of the Premier’s Department, the Secretary of the Department of Planning, and the Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure NSW.

Proposals will also be selected through an expression of interest process with established criteria (which have not yet been announced). They will apparently be assessed on merit but will benefit from a “flexible approach to planning controls”, seemingly including the ability to seek “incremental” zoning changes required to facilitate a development application. Again, it is unclear how this will work in practice and how it will sit with the established processes under the EPA Act for the amendment of planning controls and rezonings. In particular, given the overriding intention of the reform appears to be the expedition of approvals, it is unclear whether and how the usual process of public participation and comment will be accomodated for HDA approvals which involve an amendment to planning controls or a rezoning.

How does the rezoning process work?

The government has also announced a new rezoning process for projects which involve “more significant rezonings” although what will constitute a “significant rezoning” has not yet been announced.

These projects will be eligible for new “fast track” process that will be lead by DPHI and which will not require any application to the local council. Again, these projects will also be selected through an EOI process run by the HDA, where proponents will be able to submit rezoning proposals for consideration. The proposals will be considered against a set of criteria which have not yet been formulated, but which the HDA is preparing to consult on with stakeholders. All that is known at this point is that the selection criteria will be “consistent with the state’s housing priorities”.  The release notes that one major benefit of the proposed HDA pathway is to allow new projects to go through a concurrent rezoning and development assessment process before the same authority.

To discuss this article, please leave a comment below or contact Liam Mulligan on 8235 9715 .