New NSW planning laws aim to speed up housing

The Environmental Planning and Assessment (Planning System Reforms) Bill 2025 has now been introduced in Parliament, with the key aim of amending the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EPA Act) to deliver more homes through a faster, simpler and fairer planning process.

The Ministerial media release announcing the introduction of the Bill and summarising the primary features of the reform can be found here. They include:

• Establishing the Housing Delivery Authority as a corporation and statutory body under the EPA Act, with the intent of it maintaining its existing functions in the assessment of large-scale housing projects (new Division 2.3A of the EPA Act).
• Introducing a Development Coordination Authority (the Secretary of the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure), which will have an advisory function and is intended to centralise decision-making and advice currently referred to multiple State agencies (new Division 2.3B).
• Removing regionally significant development as a category of development under the EPA Act, accompanied by a staged removal of Sydney district and regional planning panels.
• Introducing a targeted assessment pathway to fast-track low-risk developments, with ‘targeted assessment development’ to be established under a State Environmental Planning Policy (new Division 4.3A). This new pathway is expected to accelerate approvals for projects or precincts that have already undergone strategic planning and community consultation.
• Introducing standard development consent conditions and allowing submissions to be made by applicants on draft conditions.
• Allowing minor variations to development the subject of a complying development certificate subject to a 10-day deemed approval period (new section 4.31 in the EPA Act and section 159A in the Regulations).
• Amending the provisions about modification of development consents and limiting refusals of minor modification applications.
• Replacing local Community Participation Plans with a single State-wide plan (possibly through updates to Schedule 1 of the EPA Act).

The Minister for Planning and Public Spaces introduced the Bill on 17 September 2025, stating the following in the Second Reading Speech:

The EP&A Act was given royal assent nearly 50 years ago. Since that time, it has been amended multiple times by successive governments and several times by this one. This has created an Act that has become complex and unwieldy. The combined effect over many years has produced an Act and a system that obsesses over relatively minor matters of detail and delays decisions about whether a proposal as a whole has merit. In short, the bill is about re-establishing a planning system that will assess land use to produce outcomes, not give priority to process—a modern system to deliver faster and fairer results … The bill modernises the objects of the Act to reflect contemporary planning priorities. The new objects focus on promoting land use that supports housing supply, climate resilience, economic productivity, the environment, heritage and conservation, and good design and construction.

There is no doubt that the NSW Planning System is complicated, and process driven. These reforms respond to mounting pressures on housing affordability and supply and aim to unlock development potential while maintaining community confidence and environmental sustainability. We will be following up with a series of articles and presentations that will delve deeper into the proposed reforms, unpack their implications, and critically assess whether they are likely to achieve the desired outcomes for NSW’s communities, economy, and environment.

Stay tuned for more insights.