'Recalcitrant' councils targeted in planning overhaul

The Housing Delivery Authority, established in January to open up more projects to faster development, will also be made permanent in a bill that reached NSW parliament on Wednesday.

In a speech to parliament, Planning Minister Paul Scully said a further expansion of a fast-track approval process forcing councils to make decision on variations within 20 days would deliver 5000 homes a year.

Every home counts in NSW's bid to build 377,000 homes in five years and hit nationally-agreed targets, with the state behind the pace to meet that goal.

Urban Taskforce Australia chief executive Tom Forrest said NSW's reforms were seismic, stating some of them "fired a shot across the bow of recalcitrant councils".

"For too long NIMBY councils have been able to nit-pick and hold back housing through development control plans (DCPs) that some councils have used to frustrate development with reference to relatively minor issues of non-compliance," he said.

"Bipartisan support takes the politics out of these critical reforms … it took a crisis to bring both sides of politics together and they should be congratulated for working together."

Sydney Yes in My Backyard had also praised the bipartisan nature of the approach and called on parliament to seize that momentum.

Decades of tweaks to the state's planning system helped balloon wait times in recent years to 114 days in 2024, despite the number of applications lodged compared to 2021 falling by almost a third.

A permanent Housing Development Authority could anger some councils.

Mr Scully said he had already declared 240 proposals as state-significant via the fast-tracking body, which could deliver more than 86,000 homes if approved.

"It was introduced in recognition that the state needed to play a role in assessing, in larger, more complex housing proposals," Mr Scully said.

"That level of interest reflects both the urgency of the housing challenge  and the confidence that industry has in the HDA's role."