Council fights to cut back DA processing times
Image: Leichhardt Mayor Darcy Byrne
As Leichhardt Council continues its quest to abandon its title as the slowest council in NSW in processing development applications (DAs), policy changes have been introduced.
While there has been significant improvement in average processing times of DAs in the last two terms of Council, Mayor Darcy Byrne and several councillors have acknowledged processing times are not good enough. The average time to process a DA was 185 days from 2005 to 2006, but it has dropped by 50 per cent down to its current time of 90 days.
“Leichhardt Council has the highest levels of political interference in the process of any Council in the state; I believe that is unacceptable,” Mr Byrne said.
“When I saw that in the third quarter of last year that our processing times had actually blown out, I initiated a report to come to Council that looked at far-reaching measures that enable Council to speed up its processing times and take the policies out of the process. Some of those were adopted in last week’s meeting.”
The eight business day time period referred to for placing reports on Council’s online DA tracking has been amended to five business days, while the prospect of funding in future budgets for additional resourcing has been canvassed.
Mr Byrne said the changes will make it easier for Council officers to “determine uncontroversial applications or applications without a large number of submissions”.
Liberal Councillor John Jobling hopes the amendments implemented by Leichhardt Council will have a wider impact on councils across NSW.
“The changes that were talked about certainly will assist people from not only within our area who know the councils requirements, but people coming in from outside to know what’s going on and what’s needed,” he said.
“Too many councils in NSW have different views, different ideas and it’s really a nightmare for anybody to try and put an application through. The consequence is that it is the beginning of trying to make things easier for residents.”
The last term of Leichhardt Council saw a drop in 20 processing days under the Greens’ influence.
Greens Councillor Daniel Kogoy credited the improvement to hiring additional planning and heritage staff, improving internal systems and providing supplementary training for staff. He said some of the changes will take away planning powers from residents.
“The recommendations of the report make it more difficult for community members, whether it’s their own DA or wanting to have a say to amend a DA that’s down the road,” Mr Kogoy said.
“It makes it more difficult for them to call that DA to a site inspection or a building and development meeting so that everybody has the chance to have a fair say on that DA. We as the Greens think that’s the wrong approach – to take the voice away from the community.”
Mr Kogoy said the decision DAs with up to two submissions will not be placed on Council’s online application tracking system takes the “voice away from the community”. By not placing these applications on the Council tracking system, Mr Kogoy believes “there is an issue there of transparency and accountability”.
Traditionally Leichhardt’s delay in processing times have been justified by the high urban density development in the region. Other confounding reasons include Leichhardt’s heritage conservation zones, harbour foreshore controls and high levels of community consultation on planning matters.
