A controversial planning process that allows developers to challenge unfavourable council decisions is to be replaced by a "simpler, faster and clearer" system, Planning Minister Rob Stokes has announced.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The changes to come more than a year after Mr Stokes slammed the process as "providing endless backdoor opportunities for disreputable developers to push their proposals".
Known as a pre-gateway review, developers could contest rezoning decisions, as long as they are prepared to pay $5000 application fee, and then another $15,000 if an appeal is granted.
Before the process were introduced by the O'Farrell government in 2012, council rezoning decisions had been final.
In announcing the changes, Mr Stokes said "while it's appropriate that council decisions can be tested before an independent panel, this opportunity needs to be transparent and balanced".
The new system will only permit reviews in instances where a rezoning is of "clear strategic merit".
"We will reform the process of reviewing a council's decision with a presumption against rezoning unless there is a compelling reason for change," Mr Stokes said.
The new system will also speed up decisions, with all review requests forwarded to either a Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP) or the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) within three days.
The panel or commission would then have the power to carry out the assessment and determine the rezoning.
Greens MP and planning spokesman David Shoebridge said the changes made planning panels the "judge, jury and executioner" for a local community's planning controls, with councils only given 21 days to make submissions.
"Rather than winding back the pre-gateway process, this is putting it on steroids making the time frames even shorter with even less community input," Mr Shoebridge said.
But Chris Johnson, the chief executive of the developer lobby the Urban Taskforce, welcomed the changes, which he said would lead to faster assessments.
"The pre gateway process has been bogged down in red tape processes adding on average over 230 days before a planning proposal is seriously considered," Mr Johnson said.
"If a council rejects a proposal to rezone this should go straight to an independent umpire in the form of the JRPP or the PAC and this is what is now proposed."
Mr Stokes had called for an overhaul of the system after the Department of Planning and Infrastructure "inexplicably" granted a review to a controversial rezoning in Warriewood.
Council had knocked back a bid by Meriton to change a zoning permitting 32 dwellings per hectare to allow for more than 90 dwellings per hectare.