The Department of Planning and Environment (the Department) is committed to preserving our natural environment and creating great places to live, work and play for communities across New South Wales. This can only be achieved if the community is engaged in our planning functions at the earliest possible opportunity.
Community participation builds community confidence in the planning system by: - providing the Department with access to community knowledge, ideas and expertise. - creating a shared sense of purpose, direction and understanding of the need to manage growth and change, while preserving local character.
We have developed the Department’s draft Community Participation Plan to clearly set out, in one place, how and when the community can participate in our planning functions and our community participation objectives.
The draft community participation plan is now on exhibition until Wednesday 19 December. We welcome your submissions and look forward to hearing your thoughts on how we can improve the draft plan and enhance community participation in the planning system.
The requirement for a community participation plan is part of the recent updates to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 which had enhancing community participation in the planning system as one of its objectives. Community participation plans are the key measure to support this objective and will need to be prepared by all planning authorities, including local councils.