Tweed Shire Council is working hard to tackle the backlog of Development Applications in the planning system, driving down the number of applications by almost half over the past 19 months.
In November 2022, there were 540 outstanding DA's in the system. Currently, there are 284 outstanding applications, representing a reduction of 256 outstanding applications or a 47% reduction.
Council's Director Planning and Regulation Denise Galle said every effort had been made to target older applications which had been caught up in the system for some time.
"In December 2023, there were 152 applications older than 180 days in the system," Ms Galle said.
"Since this time, we have deliberately coordinated our staff to tackle these outstanding DA's, with 114 of these applications now determined, leaving 38 of the original older applications still being worked through.
"However, over this time an additional 63 applications have crept back over the 180-day threshold, meaning we still have 101 outstanding applications over this mark."
Ms Galle said the backlog had grown as a result of several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, border closures and associated construction boom in the Tweed, while several major landowners such as Leda, Gales and Intrapac, were seeking to advance approval processes on their sites. Together, these developments represent more than 10,000 potential new homes for the Tweed.
Significant technical input had also been required for major State Government projects including the new Tweed Valley Hospital, school upgrades, senior living developments and quarries.
Additionally, the NSW Department of Planning introduced the new State Planning Portal in July 2021, creating a significant administrative load on councils, while simultaneously introducing an unprecedented number of new planning policies and amendments to the system, placing additional burden on Council's resources.
However, Ms Galle said newer applications were now moving more smoothly through the system.
"While addressing the older applications, our staff have simultaneously been targeting newer applications to keep them moving through the system as quickly as possible, cognisant of the quality of the application that has been lodged," she said.
"Staff have also been stricter on DA lodgements to improve the quality of applications being lodged so as not to clog up the system.
"The median time to assess a house in the past 12 months is 75 days (across 317 applications), while the median time to assess a pool in the past 12 months has been 49 days (across 115 applications).
"Therefore overall, there has been a great improvement in the number of our outstanding Development Applications and improvements to our DA assessment times."
Ms Galle said Council will work hard to meet the new order recently imposed by the NSW Government for councils across the State to assess DA's within 115 days.
"If we had just calculated the average assessment time for all DA's lodged and determined in 2023-24 our average assessment time would have been 93 days – well below the 115 days – but determining older applications over the past 12 months has blown that statistic out to 189 days," she said.
