June release: Part 5, Conditions of Consent and other key enhancements

The ePlanning Program regularly deploys system updates and enhancements to our services on the NSW Planning Portal.

The following is an overview of the enhancements and technical releases for the ePlanning Digital Services for the month of June.

These updates were deployed on 26 June and activated on 30 June as part of our monthly release schedule.

Part 5 online service

Release two on this service will modify the existing Part 5 online service to more closely reflect the general Review of Environmental Factors (REF) process and the legislative obligations of all agencies and councils.

The project is part of the Planning Reforms (4.1) and the main stakeholder for this release is the Infrastructure Policy team within DPIE, who lead on policy relating to the State Environmental Planning Policy (Infrastructure) 2007 (ISEPP) and Educational Establishments and Child Care Facilities 2017 (ESEPP).

The modifications will make the registration of Part 5 REF activity a generic, streamlined process that can be used by all public authorities that undertake self-assessment of Part 5 activities.

NSW Planning Portal Service Fees

The Department has amended the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 to introduce a range of nominal fees for certain planning applications, certificates and payments that are to be paid by the applicant as part of the digital application process on the NSW Planning Portal.

These fees are different to the lodgement and assessment fees charged by councils and private certifiers. They have been introduced to support the ongoing maintenance and delivery of the NSW Planning Portal and the related ePlanning Digital Services.

Release 1.0 is aimed at providing a platform for the users to make online payments (only applicable to NSW Planning Portal Service Fees) using Credit Card and/or BPAY for the suite of ePlanning applications and integrating with the existing finance system for journaling.

More information on fees, and the services affected, is available here.

Online State DA Service

This release enables the Online DA digital service to route applications to the following State Agencies: TfNSW, Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA) and Lord Howe Island Board. The listed agencies will have the capability to process and determine applications using the NSW Planning Portal. It includes notifications, work basket and dashboard changes to support the onboarding of the agencies as the determining authorities.

The following capabilities will be delivered as part of the release:

• Set lodgement date to be fee payment date to support corresponding policy change coming into effect in July.
• Enable data load to ePlanning data lake for reporting and integration purposes.

eConstruction

ePlanning and the Office of the Building Commissioner have collaborated to implement digital workflows to comply with regulatory requirements of the Design and Building Practitioner Act 2020. These changes affect building works on Class 2 residential buildings in NSW and impact the Online Complying Development Certificate Service and Online Construction Certificate Service.

Some of the key features include:

• Enhancements to ‘Property Developer’ persona/role and introduction of ‘Registered Practitioner’ persona.
• Enhancement of Complying Development Certificate and Construction Certificate for Class 2 buildings:
  • Nomination of registered practitioners is now mandatory
  • Notice of building work commencement upon certificate determination by a certifier
  • Enhanced design documents folder structure which Registered Practitioners will use to upload, declare and lodge, including variations
• Introduction of a standalone ‘Building Work Commencement Date Capture’ case type under ‘+New’ menu for property developers to allow them to notify their intention of building work commencement for CC/CDC determined prior to 1 July 2021.

Online Planning Proposal Service

The June release contains several minor enhancements to support the planning reform agenda including planning proposal completeness checks and time management.  These changes affect DPIE and council users across both Regional and Metropolitan offices.

Building Information Certificate

The project will deliver a new Building Information Certificate (BIC) service within the NSW Planning Portal. The first release of this project provides a digital workflow for an applicant to be able to submit a Building Information Certificate to council for assessment and determination through the NSW Planning Portal.

Major Projects

The following enhancements have been deployed to the Major Projects site:

• Traffic lights indicating the progress of SSI/SSD/Mod projects (for every stage, as well as the entire case end-to-end) will be displayed on dashboards and each page
• Additional KPI specific data will be presented to planners and proponents
• Completed stages will remain visible to planners and proponents within the UI
• Stage forecast dates will be self-adjusted to disregard any time spent completing SEARs or DA amendments
• PDF files containing case details and user-entered data will be retroactively created for all previously completed Compliance Investigation and will be stored in CM9
• A new ‘standalone’ Engagement workflow created to allow Compliance officers to create records of meetings/phone calls
• Numerous Compliance artefacts will be stored in CM9 upon completion of their corresponding cases
• New development type ‘Data Storage’ is being introduced
• Planners creating exhibitions will be warned if the exhibition ends on a weekend or public holiday
• Planners can have SSD Mod recommendation documents be publicly viewable for up to 7 calendar days
• All subsequent stages will begin on the next business/calendar day after the end date of the previous stage
• Planners can choose to add an additional 14 days to review certain modifications
• Planners will receive an additional 2 days at the end of the Lodge EIS stage to perform reviews
• Project KPI for applications undergoing re-exhibitions will count from the start of the re-exhibition stage
• Applications for Key Sites Assessment industries will be routed to Regional Assessments team in certain LGA’s
• Additional fields added to the BIX extract will be made available within Reporting tool, PowerBI
• Proponents will see Capital Investment Values pre-populated at Review RTS stage.

Rapid Assessment

Release 1 of Rapid Assessment delivers all the changes to State Significant Projects business processes to accommodate Rapid Assessment framework. The objective of this release is to achieve technical readiness as the changes do not come into effect until 1 October 2021. Rapid Assessment changes will be disabled until the go-live date in October. The key changes are:

• A re-design of the pre-consultation and SEARs processes including removal and merge of stages and steps for SSI, SSD, SSI Mods, SSD Mods
• Introduction of industry-specific SEARs templates and related cover letter for SSD prescribed applications
• Changes to the in-line editing function for SEARs
• Introduction of industry-specific email notifications and removal of redundant emails
• Introduction of rules to identify and flag prescribed applications
• Amending the clauses of the SEPP in the system for completion and accuracy
• Changes to the rules on document uploads with applications in the system
• Changes to wording and instruction notes across user interfaces
• Changes to EIS lodgement screens to align with SEARs request
• Amending application statuses
• Amendments to KPI rules to accommodate applications processed under the rapid assessment workflow.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

The June release sees important enhancements to the existing Concurrence and Referral Agency Integration API service. Monthly maintenance has also been deployed for Online DA and Section 68 API services, and to support eConstuction UI changes. Minor enhancements and backlog items have also been released across a number of API services. More information can be found on the site's API and reporting section.

For council and agency users and certifiers, documentation providing more detail on each release has been uploaded to the Knowledge Management section of the ePlanning Digital Services dashboards, for those with access.