01 September 2010
In June 2010 the NSW Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, announced the establishment of an review into the role and performance of the Central Sydney Planning Committee (CSPC).
The review was undertaken by a panel chaired by Ms Gabrielle Kibble AO and a review report has now been released. The review panel found that “the CSPC appropriately balances State and local objectives” and that “the CSPC plays an important role in delivering design excellence and in ensuring that the design quality and amenity of residential flat buildings is achieved in the City of Sydney’s major urban renewal areas”.
The report is disappointing and fails address most of the problems with the development assessment process in the City of Sydney. However, one of the things we raised is the mandatory design competition requirements involving five architects. On this point, the review recommended that the CSPC be allowed to dispense with the design competition requirements if the architect involved has an outstanding reputation.
Other recommendations of the report include:
- The CSPC’s jurisdiction should continue to encompass the entire area within the City of Sydney boundary.
- Duplication of design input into major DAs should be avoided. Council should ensure that DAs are referred to the Design Advisory Panel at the same time as other referrals are distributed.
- A Major Development Assessment Team should be established within Council’s Planning Section with specific responsibility for DAs over $50 million. This would enable better streamlining of the DA assessment process for major developments, particularly with respect to managing internal referrals and ensuring better coordination between the various areas of Council.
- Pre DA conferences for DAs over $50 million should be compulsory, should be attended by the Director of Planning, and should always be followed by written advice to the applicant.
- The CSPC should take a proactive role in monitoring major DAs and other outstanding actions. A status report on all DAs and an “actions outstanding” list should be reported to the CSPC at every meeting.
- Council should ensure that measures being introduced to reduce DA determination timeframes are effective, particularly for DAs valued between $10 million and $50 million.
- The Council and the NSW Department of Planning should expedite the finalisation of the draft City Plan so that it can proceed to public exhibition as soon as possible with a view to gazetting the City Plan by mid 2011.
The review report can be accessed from here. Our original submission to the review is here.
The report has not yet been adopted by the Government or the City. They will respond to the report later.
