Local councils would be forced to set deadlines for deciding on housing development applications and lose approval rights if they cannot stick to them, under a proposal from the national peak body representing big business.
The Business Council of Australia is urging state governments to force local councils to consult housing development proponents and set agreed deadlines, case by case, for ruling on their applications – then be held accountable for meeting them.
The BCA argues that delays in deciding on applications have created a supply bottleneck, fuelling uncertainty and making developers reluctant to invest.
The BCA chief executive, Bran Black, said while government measures were being proposed on the demand side to help would-be buyers and renters, there was a housing supply crisis that was not being addressed.
“We need to turbocharge the assessment and approval process so we get more homes built faster,” Black said.
“Plain and simple, we need more supply and we want to work with local and state government to speed up their housing decisions, so builders can get on with the job of delivering places for people to live.”
He pointed to the New South Wales government’s online “council report card” – which reveals the time each council has taken to resolve applications, whether they are approved or rejected – saying it could form a template for other states.
Before its report this week on housing supply and affordability, the BCA also proposed a new regime to set statutory deadlines where it said none now exist.
Under the proposal, local councils would be required to set a bespoke deadline for resolving each application. If they failed to meet it, the decision would default to the state government.
Councils that persistently failed to meet their agreed decision-making deadlines would have their approval powers revoked and transferred to the state government.
Black acknowledged the changes would be hard to implement but said action was required.
“I hear from members that some councils are highly professional while others are unresponsive and can take months to make a decision, in some cases running down the clock because they can,” Black said.
He said state governments should also have the power to assess and approve proposed projects that are deemed to be of “state significance”. Each state sets its own threshold for determining what qualifies, ranging from a $20m project value for metropolitan developments in Western Australia to $75m in Sydney. The BCA argued that top threshold should be lowered.
It also recommended what it described as a “state concierge service” for monitoring and speeding up decisions, suggesting a model used in Queensland could be replicated across the county.
