The NSW planning system: revolutionary, reform, revolution!

Land-use planning in New South Wales (NSW) is administered under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. When it was enacted, it was heralded as revolutionary. It contained three objects that outlined its substantive purpose, including the consideration of environmental issues in decision-making, the separation of state and local planning functions and greater public participation. For the first 20 years of the Act’s operation, the Act remained relatively unchanged. However, since the early 2000s the Act and the planning system it enables has been the subject of sustained criticism. Industry groups have called for greater efficiency, flexibility and certainty, and less complexity and delay. These condemnations have resulted in over two decades of reforms. Other commentators have provided reviews of the reform interventions until 2011 and have remarked on the misalignment between those interventions and the substantive purpose of the Act. This article continues this assessment and finds that with some exceptions, the reforms to the Act and the planning system have no relationship to the objects and some reforms are actually undermining them. The article concludes that it is time for revolution, not more reform.