Have your say: Proposed statewide Community Participation Plan

Currently, over 100 different Community Participation Plans operate across NSW, leading to inconsistent consultation practices and timeframes for the same development types across local government areas.

These reforms will replace individual plans with a single, statewide approach to provide consistency and certainty to all stakeholders and ensure public exhibition and consultation requirements match the scale and impact of development proposals.

Existing Community Participation Plans will remain in place until the statewide Community Participation Plan is finalised, and the relevant clauses of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 commence, supported by savings and transitional arrangements. At that time, the statewide Community Participation Plan will become the only active plan in NSW. This means that all existing council and NSW Government agency Community Participation Plans will be superseded. 

The statewide Community Participation Plan explains how and when the community can participate in planning matters. It also explains when planning authorities like councils and NSW Government agencies are required to undertake community consultation in NSW.

The plan provides minimum public exhibition timeframes that must be met by planning authorities and provides high-level guidance on how and when a planning authority is required to engage with the community for different planning functions.

The plan applies to everyone in NSW, including communities, councils, and NSW Government agencies and determining authorities who engage with planning matters in NSW. 

Amendments to Schedule 1 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 outline that development applications must be exhibited for 14 days unless the Planning Secretary sets a different timeframe in the Community Participation Plan or states in the plan that for specified development applications no public exhibition is required.  

These changes are about protecting and promoting participation on the planning issues that matter most and removing consultation that is duplicative or unnecessary.

The draft Community Participation Plan proposes to extend exhibition for strategic plans, to ensure stakeholders can fully engage with how their communities will change over time.  

DA consultation requirements will also be standardised across the state, with a list of lower-impact development types identified where no public exhibition is required where the development is consistent with the planning controls.  

A proposed development is still required to undergo an assessment by the consent authority under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and this is not changing. The assessment officer will still need to address relevant matters and ensure any impacts, including to amenity, are considered through this assessment.  

The draft statewide Community Participation Plan proposes to extend consultation timeframes for strategic planning to support communities to participate early in the strategic and policy-setting stages of the planning cycle when the planning rules are being set. Engaging in the planning system at this time will ensure that communities have a say in how their neighbourhoods change over time.  

When developing the statewide Community Participation Plan, the Planning Secretary must have regard to the community participation principles that are detailed in Section 2.23(2) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

These principles are consistent with the model for engagement set by the International Association for Public Participation and represent best practice engagement for planning matters.  

Councils and NSW Government agencies will be able to undertake targeted engagement with their communities that goes beyond the requirements outlined in the statewide Community Participation Plan. The plan provides examples of best practice and minimum consultation requirements, but councils can continue to update or prepare their own bespoke community engagement strategies as required under the Local Government Act 1993. 

However, community engagement strategies will not be able to include exhibition and consultation timeframes for planning functions. 

The Community Participation Plan details the mandatory minimum public exhibition periods for relevant planning functions. A planning proposal subject to a gateway determination must be exhibited for 28 days unless:

• a different period of public exhibition is specified in the gateway determination for the proposal. If so, the proposal must be exhibited for the period so specified
• the gateway determination specifies that no public exhibition is required because of the minor nature of the proposal. If so, no public exhibition is required.

Community consultation requirements for planning proposals are outlined in the draft Community Participation Plan and LEP Making Guideline – August 2023, but may be subject to additional consultation requirements as determined at the gateway determination stage.  

There is legislative scope to prescribe regulations to set the form, content and procedures for making and publishing the plan, its amendment and reporting on implementation.  

To provide consistency across NSW, an update to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021 is proposed to mandate a 7-day notification before works commence for new buildings, additions and demolitions undertaken as complying development in all local government areas. This update would remove the current 14-day written notice requirement which currently applies across NSW.  

We are currently seeking feedback on the draft statewide Community Participation Plan which will help shape the final plan, expected to come into effect later this year. 

These documents will continue to exist until the engagement strategy is updated as per the Local Government Act 1993. However, information such as exhibition timeframes included in the statewide Community Participation Plan will prevail over timeframes specified elsewhere. 

We will periodically review the Community Participation Plan as required under section 2.24(3) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

We will continue to work with stakeholders to monitor the effectiveness of these changes so that we can speed up the delivery of new homes across the state.