Leichhardt Council shakes up DA process

Development application(DA) approval times will be sped up by Leichhardt Council in a bid to streamline the process.

Leichhardt Council contracted independent consultants to review its DA processes and a number of recommendations from the consultants will be implemented to improve DA processing times.

The measures aim to cut DA processing times by almost half the time it would have taken five years ago.

Member for Balmain, Leichhardt Councillor and former Mayor, Jamie Parker, said that reducing DA approval time was one of the community’s top priorities.

“We have made significant improvements to our processing times since 2006,” he said, “but with a big increase expected in DAs lodged this year, it’s clearly a good time for us to take a new look at how to bring those times down even further. This is a constant process of improvement.”

One of the problems identified by the findings was the amount of time lost through amendments and the need for extra information. The new system will provide better planning advice so that applicants are better prepared to lodge their Das. Council staff will also work with applicants when they lodge their applications to make sure applications are ready to be submitted, and simple DAs will be fast tracked providing they fall within clearly defined boundaries.

“We will really be encouraging people to take advantage of our pre-DA application service,” said Cr Parker. “It’s a cost effective and timely way to get an opinion on a development proposal and find out what information you need to submit to complete your application.”

Councillor John Stamolis said that while DA processing times could be improved, the current state of processing times for Leichhardt, 113 days on average, was already above average.

“Looking at data for 14 inner-city Councils shows that half of these Councils have average DA processing times above 90 days,” Cr Stamolis said. “If we look even more closely at those inner-city Councils which contain either high density residential, heritage, or are located on the harbour foreshores – such as Leichhardt, Marrickville, Hunters Hill, North Sydney and Mosman – the DA processing times average around 100 days.

“Inner-city Councils can be affected by a range of planning regulations such as State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) associated with the harbour foreshores or contamination of old industrial sites. Then, there are the important controls associated with protecting heritage. These all add layers of complexity to DA processing.”

Cr Stamolis said that DA processing times in Leichhardt had improved greatly over the past few years which was a credit to Council management and staff.