Wagga Wagga City Council advises residents, development applicants and potential applicants that it is changing the availability of its Duty Planner and Building Surveying Service to allow staff to focus on prioritising and assessing applications that have already been lodged with Council.
From Monday 21 October 2024, Council Planners and Building Surveyors will only be available between 8.30am until 1pm each weekday for phone enquiries or drop-ins at the Customer Service desk at the Civic Centre.
This change comes from a review that aims to improve timeframes and provide sustainable planning and development services in the most efficient manner.
Council's Project Director Regulatory Planning and Reform Rebecca Fox says the new hours were determined after analysis of the queries currently being received and the evaluation of the trial reduction in planning duty services earlier this year.
"Temporarily reducing the service to four days a week over a six-week period in June and July allowed our officers to focus on Development Applications that were already with Council for feedback or determination," Ms Fox said.
"Customers were supportive of this trial and our officers were able to reduce the backlog of Development Applications significantly."
Council assesses applications in line with the Minister for Planning's Environmental Planning and Assessment (Statement of Expectations) Order effective 1 July 2024.
"We're continually working on improving how we deliver our services to the community and developers.
"We like to work with the community to make sure the service is as efficient and seamless as possible and, ultimately, we are aiming to reduce timeframes for assessment and decisions made by Council."
The Duty Planner service enables residents, builders and developers to ask questions about development applications they've submitted or are considering submitting, from relatively simple matters such as fence heights to complex developments and planning requirements.
Council is committed to providing this service to the community, and to working with all applicants to improve the quality of information received in applications and reduce timeframes for assessments.
"We are still encouraging applicants and potential applicants to contact the service if they have a planning and development related query, but please do it before 1pm each weekday," Ms Fox said.
"We are focussed on the large number of applications currently in the planning system and are seeking to collaborate with applicants to improve timeframes as the data indicates that we can assess good quality information more quickly.
"Taking queries only between 8.30am and 1pm each weekday will also allow duty officers to finalise and respond to more complex queries each afternoon."
