Housing Approval Reform Action Plan

About the Plan

Increasing the supply of diverse, well-located homes, and enhancing social, affordable housing is a strategic priority of the Australian and NSW Governments.

The Housing Approval Reform Action Plan is a collaboration between NSW water sector agencies to support the NSW Government to meet its housing targets. In partnership with WaterNSW and Sydney Water, we are improving the planning approval process for housing development.

Water management is a critical part of land use planning and housing development in NSW. All housing requires infrastructure to supply water for drinking and household use, and to manage wastewater and stormwater. Water agencies also assess development impacts to protect, enhance and restore water sources.

The Housing Approval Reform Action Plan has 4 short to medium term outcomes and 13 actions that will speed up the water-related approvals required for housing developments. These actions will have the greatest impact on reducing housing approval timeframes and addressing industry concerns.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Reduce turnaround times

• Action 1. Expand risk-based triaging for all referral types
• Action 2. Continue streamlining the construction dewatering process
• Action 3. Revise key performance indicators and align performance reporting
• Action 4 Help developers and Water Servicing Coordinators get their applications right first time
• Action 5. Promote early engagement on applications
• Action 6. Sydney Water to promote a culture of fast service and solutions focus

Outcome 2: Update policy and regulation

• Action 7. Amend the Water Management (General) Regulation 2018 relating to licensing and approvals exemptions
• Action 8. Update relevant planning instruments to improve water servicing considerations in strategic planning

Outcome 3: Improve governance and increase capability

• Action 9. Strengthen planning approvals, advice coordination and responsibilities for strategic and statutory water matters
• Action 10. Uplift resource capacity and capability

Outcome 4: Increase process transparency and information

• Action 11. Further improve website information
• Action 12: Sydney Water to deliver new Business to Business (B2B) workflow system
• Action 13. Continue online education forums for key stakeholders

The water sector agencies are also progressing other actions to improve the planning approval process for housing developments. This work builds on the improvements to the water licensing and approvals process that have been delivered by these agencies in recent years.