The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (EPAA) has always supported a hierarchical approval structure that was intended to provide appropriate levels of transparency in the assessment process, balancing the interests of all parties involved without burdening the vast majority of applications with unnecessary bureaucratic red tape.
The Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) is the final piece of the puzzle. It was established under the same state planning reforms (Part 2A of the 2008 EPAA Amendment Act) that saw the introduction of Joint Regional Planning Panels (JRPPs). The PAC is effectively the highest authority in relation to the determination of planning matters. It operates independently of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment primarily to determine State significant development applications where there is ‘significant opposition’ from the community—where there have been 25 or more public objections, the local council has objected, or the applicant has made a reportable political donation. The Department of Planning and Environment itself is the delegated consent authority for State significant development where this level of opposition has not been encoutered.
While high value and controversial developments are always in the public eye, and are thus the focus of most efforts to demonstrate transparency in the determination process, there has been an ongoing effort to simplify the process for the most simple or common forms of development (cf. the Exempt and Complying Development Codes State Environmental Planning Policy). The most recent (2012–2013) attempt to reform the NSW planning system, however, failed in fairly spectacular fashion, ultimately resulting in a ministerial reshuffle, the departure of the then Director General of Planning and a restructuring of the Department of Planning. The reforms were an attempt to ‘streamline’ the planning process but were perceived to have been the result of lobbying from property development interests. The resulting public outcry, particularly in metropolitan areas where there was significant concern in relation to the proliferation of residential flat buildings, led to the abandonment of this effort to replace the EPAA.
In spite of the failure of the overall proposal, certain elements of the reform package have indeed since been implemented. The introduction of Independent Hearing and Assessment Panels (IHAPs) in metropolitan Local Government Areas (LGAs), removing all development assessment powers from Councils (elected representatives), was one element of the reform package that specifically targeted corruption in the assessment process. This is seen as one of the most significant shifts in the allocation of responsibility for development decision-making since the introduction of the EPAA. Whether or not this approach will lead to more efficient or even transparent processing, or when this model might be extended to embrace regional councils is yet to be determined.
And if all this wasn’t confusing enough, the planning agencies I’ve mentioned have recently been renamed, so that the PAC is now the Independent Planning Commission (IPC), JRPPs are now just Regional Planning Panels (RPPs) and IHAPs are now known as Local Planning Panels (LPPs). The hierarchy nonetheless remains the same, with the IPC responsible for the determination of state significant development, RPPs for regionally significant or high value local development and LPPs in metropolitan areas for local development that cannot, for one reason or another (generally local controversy), be determined by council planning staff under delegation. In regional areas, for the time being, Councils remain the local consent authority.