“Planning reforms a gift to developers”- communities left behind on climate
The NSW Government have announced further planning reforms claimed to fast-track, streamline and see more houses built. The changes will include a one stop shop through a Development Coordination Authority, a climate resilience objective and make changes to community consultation and expand the category of smaller developments that slip through the system.
Greens MP and spokesperson for Planning Sue Higginson said “The Minns Labor Government has made it their clear mission to see developers build more new housing and development in NSW. In what certainly looks like a gift to developers, following the mantra of cutting proverbial ‘red tape’, the Minns Government will now establish the Development Coordination Authority which will cut out the advice of independent expert agencies. Limiting and filtering expert independent advice is never a good plan,”
“It’s telling that in their announcement, the Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Planning, didn’t mention this week’s Climate Risk Report that identified one million homes are at 'very high risk' and will be effectively uninsurable by 2050. Fast tracking houses is no solution as long as people are still moving onto floodplains, biodiversity is being trashed, climate resilience is merely an objective, and public and affordable housing is an after-thought,”
“We need certainty that new developments will not occur on flood or bushfire prone land, that development will not destroy more biodiversity and mature trees and that new homes are being built to the highest thermal standards. Under this Government we have already seen thermal standards reduced for some of their accelerated up-zonings,”
“While coordination is always a welcomed feature of any system, the establishment of the Development Coordination Authority seriously threatens the integrity of our planning system and decisions made. This new super-office will be responsible for every single development application or planning proposal - it’s a Trojan Horse that will remove the critical independent expert voices in Government agencies that raise serious and legitimate concerns. This has been on the wishlist for developers for a long time, and it looks like this bill will deliver,”
“We need firm and clear requirements that all new builds will have a best standard proportion of in-perpetuity affordable homes, and a minimum requirement for social housing. The Government needs to make sure that 30% of new builds are affordable homes, and 10% public homes,”
“Setting up the planning system to reward developers, so they can profit from building houses, won’t fix the housing affordability crisis which is where real housing pain is being felt - and it will do nothing for the 66 thousand households on the wait list for social housing,”
“We support appropriate and well planned new housing, that’s not in question. Where we disagree with the Government is how the community and expert advice should be involved in decisions, and making sure that we are taking on board the existential threat of the climate and biodiversity crises,” Ms Higginson said.