City of Canada Bay Council says it has halved the amount of time it takes to assess development applications (DAs) for new residences, following a comprehensive review of internal processes.
“After months of hard work from our expert assessment team, we are pleased to report our assessment times for new housing have halved since July 2022,” said Mayor, Michael Megna.
Commencing in July 2022, the Faster Local Government Approvals (FLAG) Project has seen a significant reduction in assessment times across all DAs over the course of 18 months, the Mayor said.
“We are committed to putting our residents, our customers, at the centre of everything we do – and the FLAG project is a key example of this in action.”
“Councils are facing an unprecedented number of development applications following State planning reforms to promote housing growth across Sydney.
“With more development applications to assess than ever before, our challenge is to find time savings wherever possible.”
The project saw the Council introduce a new Clearing House process to better prioritise DAs, integrate with State Government portals, streamline its conditions of consent, and focus on customer service to reduce its assessment times.
The Council received $350,000 in funding to deliver the project as part of the NSW Government’s $4.9 million Faster Local Assessment Grant Program.
