September 2023 Release: BASIX, Concurrence and Referrals, Development Applications, Sustainable Housing SEPP and more

Table of contents

• BASIX
• Concurrence and Referrals
• Development Applications
  • Sustainable Building SEPP
• Housing Productivity Commission Ruleset Tool
• Major Projects
  • Sustainable Building SEPP
  • Interface solutions
• Post-Consent Certificates
• Application Programming Interface (API)

BASIX (Building Sustainability Index)

A digital solution has been provided within the NSW Planning Portal (the Portal) that improves the current BASIX workflows and migrates all the BASIX functionalities from the Java Platform to the PEGA Platform where the majority of digital services reside.

The main features for this release include:

• Enabling applicants to apply for V3 BASIX standards access approval when creating applications for new dwellings and BASIX administration will be able to approve/reject based on the eligibility criteria
• Enabling applicants, BASIX admin, councils and certifiers to use BASIX via the NSW Planning Portal
• Providing similar engine functionalities as the legacy system, improving workflows, and admin functionalities
• Enabling applicants to create new application types in the Portal with new project details, application details including water, thermal, energy and materials for single and multi-dwellings and generating BASIX report/BASIX certificate based on Higher BASIX standards (latest) - V4 engine calculations
• The addition of Material section and DIY under thermal performance to allow users to capture the required information as per the Sustainable Buildings SEPP
• API integration with latest BASIX V4 engine
• Enabling applicants to create applications for alterations and additions within the Portal with project details and complete pool and spa, fixtures and systems, construction, and glazing details
• Migrating existing user profiles, completed and in progress, projects from the legacy BASIX system into the ePlanning platform.
• Migrating content (Help text URLs) from legacy (Joomla) to Drupal.
• Providing same data sets in the PEGA portal from the legacy system where end users and BASIX admin can have seamless business continuity
• Enabling certifiers to issue a BASIX completion receipt via the Occupation certificate workflow
• Enabling councils to search BASIX certificates and completion receipts relative to their LGA
• Enabling certifier to search for completion receipts that were issued by them

Concurrence and Referrals (CnR)

These changes will be available to any State Agency however access will be by permission and user configuration as controlled by Administrators. Access will be available following training to be conducted by the PDU.

• Inflight CnR Agency cases which are already on the decision screen to check the new responses and documents configured are available to select/choose from.
• Select the Biodiversity clause - creates a clause case – check the decision screen for new responses and documents configured are available to select/choose from.
• Standard request & response configuration as an Agency Officer & Admin.

Development Applications

DA Online and State DAs

The new State Environmental Planning Policy (Sustainable Buildings) 2022 (SB SEPP) and related EP&A Regulation amendments will apply from 1 October 2023

The policy updates standards for residential developments under BASIX and introduces new provisions for non-residential developments. The new non-residential policy provisions apply to all developments unless exempt under Chapter 3.1 of the SB SEPP.

The digital implementation focuses on the non-residential development component of the policy.

The impacted workflows include new development applications, development modifications, review development application determinations and edit development applications.

All non-residential developments (unless exempt) are required to:

• Report on general sustainability measures and responsible sourcing of key materials
• Disclose embodied emissions (as defined in section 35B of the EP&A Regulation) by submitting a NABERS Embodied Emissions Materials Form.
• Further provisions apply to prescribed commercial developments (including offices with a net lettable area of at least 1000m2, hotel or motel accommodation with at least 100 rooms or serviced apartment building with at least 100 apartments
• These commercial developments must submit a net zero statement (as defined in section 35C of the EP&A Regulation) and achieve energy and water standards as specified under Chapter 3 of the SB SEPP. A copy of a NABERS Agreement to Rate and/or Commitment Agreement for each prescribed commercial use must be submitted with the development application.
• New questions and data fields have been added to Development Applications (DAs). These fields will help to determine each development’s requirements and allow applicants to demonstrate compliance.
• New SB SEPP document categories have been added to accommodate the SB SEPP required documents.

Housing Productivity Commission (HPC) Ruleset Tool

The Housing Productivity Ruleset Tool is a new digital service that facilitates the Department’s ability to create new contribution plans by entering chargeable development works, monetary rates, and discounts to create a ‘ruleset’ in the system. The Department’s ability to link the ruleset to an established geographical boundary by way of digital map functionality (i.e., spatial layer) will be supported by the Geospatial Information System (GIS) and the GIS team.

This release will introduce the following features:

• Automatically apply HPC rulesets when applicant submits a DA, State DA, CDC application based on address and type of development work selected in the application
• Allow the applicant to provide contribution usage related information during the application of a DA or CDC
• Allow the consent authority to review, and input contribution usage information if the information filled in by applicant is not accurate
• Allow consent authorities to calculate contributions, multiple times, if necessary, until they want to finalise the contributions calculation
• Allow all consent authorities other than certifiers to manually alter system calculated contribution amounts, if necessary
• Allow consent authorities or certifiers to enter in the timing of payment for housing and productivity contributions
• Enable any registered portal user to search for a PAN or CDC number and see amounts payable under various HPC rulesets and select one or more entries to make payment using the Service NSW payment gateway
• Enable the user to automatically apply indexation and applicable discount at the time of payment
• Enhance the post consent certificate process to put a block from issuing a certificate if associated contribution payment has not been completed in the portal
• Stop applicants from submitting intention to commence work for a CDC if timing of payment was chosen as intention to commence work at the time of contribution calculation

Major Projects - Sustainable Building SEPP

The new State Environmental Planning Policy (Sustainable Buildings) 2022 (SB SEPP) and related EP&A Regulation amendments will apply from 1 October 2023

The policy updates standards for residential developments under BASIX and introduces new provisions for non-residential developments. The new non-residential policy provisions apply to all developments unless exempt under Chapter 3.1 of the SB SEPP.

The digital implementation focuses on the non-residential development component of the policy for State significant developments (SSDs) and their modifications.

The impacted workflows include new SSD applications, their modifications, and amendments to the Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs) and the development application. All non-residential developments (unless exempt) are required to:

• Report on general sustainability measures and responsible sourcing of key materials
• Disclose embodied emissions (as defined in section 35B of the EP&A Regulation) by submitting a NABERS Embodied Emissions Materials Form.
• State significant developments specified in the SEPP 2021, Schedule 1, sections 13-15, including health, education and cultural buildings will be required to achieve or work toward net zero, demonstrated by submitting a net zero statement (as defined in section 35C of the EP&A Regulation).
• Further provisions apply to prescribed commercial developments (including offices with a net lettable area of at least 1000m2, hotel or motel accommodation with at least 100 rooms or serviced apartment building with at least 100 apartments
• These commercial developments must submit a net zero statement (as defined in section 35C of the EP&A Regulation) and achieve energy and water standards as specified under Chapter 3 of the SB SEPP. A copy of a NABERS Agreement to Rate and/or Commitment Agreement for each prescribed commercial use must be submitted with the development application.
• New questions and data fields have been added to SSDs and modifications. These fields will help to determine each development’s requirements and allow applicants to demonstrate compliance.
• New SB SEPP screens have been added to the Request SEARs and Prepare EIS stages of the proponent’s SSD assessment workflow
• Document categories have been added to accommodate the SB SEPP required documents
• Updates to all system-generated PDFs to included the new SB SEPP fields.
• Updates have been made to the industry-specific and project-specific SEARs templates to incorporated reference to the SB SEPP.

Major Projects – Interface resolution

Updates have been made to the digital service to resolve interface issues reported by users. The changes aim to improve the overall user experience of those users.

Summary of resolution:

• Inconsistency in the number of tasks have been corrected in the compliance team leader dashboard and tasks and are now displayed.
• Pulse functionality has been activated.
• General attachment and email attachments for “Compliance - In Record of conversations- attachments" are displayed.
• Request for further information mandatory validation message is no longer displayed on non-mandatory fields.
• Multiple modification cases can be created for more than one Modification case for Critical SSI Parent cases.
• Non mandatory questions in investigate cases no longer need to be completed to proceed with the case.
• Cache is freed up to enable investigation cases to proceed.
• PDF title displayed as !TABTHREAD6.pdf instead of the actual file's name now displays correct file name.
• Email notifications are available when the external user add/remove multiple admins.
• Footer section correctly displays "Concept details" and “Stage 1 details”.
• Single Case API changes have been made to accommodate the above listed changes.

Post-Consent Certificates

The Construction Certificate (CC) workflow has been modified to include new SB SEPP screens and fields to accommodate the introduction of the Sustainable Buildings SEPP. The updates are minor as most of the SB SEPP requirements are captured during the development application (DA) stage. Updates have also been made to the Edit Construction Certificate workflow to enable the certifier to update the SB SEPP fields, as needed. The following has also been resolved:

• All Strata Bonds under an ITSOC need to be approved/resolved prior to letting a developer raise a request for occupation certificate (OC). For stand-alone cases, a functionality has been introduced to check if all Strata Bonds are approved/resolved on OC screen.
• Enabled a functionality to show completed cases in Register Offline Consent (ROC) application completed work.
• Removed a duplicate declaration statement for ITSOC cases.
• Removed the maximum length limit of 256 characters in order to display all selected development types while linking construction certificates.

Application Programming Interface (API)

Enhancements have been made to existing APIs for the following digital services Online DA, State DA, and Post-Consent Certificate.

• Additional attributes introduced in multiple existing operations to capture Sustainable Building SEPP details from the applicant. Another attribute has been added to the assessment screen for council to confirm if the sustainable buildings requirement is met or not. This attribute is currently being introduced as optional and will be mandated in future (December 2023) release. This is to allow more time for consumers to adopt this change.
• Contribution case IDs and their status are included in a number of existing operations. New attributes introduced in DA to capture if an application is concept only development
• Determination will be blocked if a contribution case is outstanding in DAs and State DAs or if payment is outstanding for Housing and Productivity Contribution in PCC (OC/CC/SC/SWC).
• A new operation introduced to generate BASIX Completion Receipt. This step is a functional requirement before issuing Occupation Certificates and will need to be done via API or via the Portal.