This is a State Environmental Planning Policy amendment with no further exhibition of the Policy required. Closes 30 July 2026
What is being proposed
The NSW Government is proposing to standardise conditions of development consent across NSW and include them in a single statewide SEPP under the Planning Systems Reforms Act 2025.
All residential development will be subject to the standardised conditions of consent – one set for low rise and a separate set for mid and high-rise, shop-top housing and State Significant Development.
Applicants get a pre-issue window to see draft conditions of consent and make representations before final determination. Submitters and adjoining owners do not get that opportunity.
No statutory review period.
Three types of conditions are proposed:
- Standard – these are fixed and cannot be amended by the consent authority.
- Model – partially fixed, with some editable fields.
- Bespoke – additions to the Model conditions developed for site specific issues (e.g. additional tree protection measures). Must be consistent with standard or model conditions and be in accordance with the Department’s Guide to writing conditions of consent.
Why BPN Opposes the Reform as Drafted
Site variables drive planning outcomes. There is no opportunity for conditions of consent to be included for many site-specific conditions, including flooding, coastal hazards, heritage, Aboriginal cultural landscape, topography, geology, or native fauna protection. There must be additional sections where these site-specific conditions can be included.
Important conditions missing. Including (a)Bushfire is under scoped, with the only bush fire conditions relating to asset protection zones and no bespoke ability for additional conditions to be included on bushfire. Similarly, there is no requirement for adherence to RFS Planning for Bushfire Protection until after occupation, and (b) Heritage is erased: curtilage, fabric and HCA interface don’t appear in the Model conditions. A wider range of conditions must be included in the Model conditions.
Application of conditions do not reflect current practice.Conditions of consent are grouped as follows: General Conditions, Before Issue of a Construction Certificate, Before Building Work Commences, During Building Work, Before Issue of an Occupation Certificate, and Occupation and Ongoing Use. Typically, conditions regarding such matters as tree protection appear in most if not all sections because the different stages require different conditions. Yet the standardised Conditions of Consent only has sediment control, wall dilapidation and APZs in multiple sections. Site specific (bespoke) conditions must be able to be included in multiple sections under each stage of construction.
One-sided access to drafting. Mandatory pre-issue consultation with applicants on draft conditions is proposed for mid and high-rise developments, with no consultation for neighbours, submitters and community groups. For transparency, the original conditions and any applicant comments must be published on the Planning Portal. For procedural fairness, submitters must also be allowed to comment before conditions are issued.
Governance risk. A confidential applicant-only wording process creates the kind of asymmetric access ICAC has repeatedly warned about. The process must be transparent to avoid potential for corruption.
Loss of council-refined wording. Decades of locally tuned conditions on matters including fire, flood and heritage risk being erased. Bespoke conditions must be allowed for all types of conditions and all sections of consent conditions.
No cumulative-impact mechanism. The reform would be introduced alongside existing TOD and LMR precinct uplifts with no way to condition for combined construction, stormwater, traffic and tree canopy-loss impacts. Additional conditions must be allowed that can take into consideration cumulative impacts.
Portal register at risk. The versioned register on the NSW Planning Portal is proposed to move to Word or PDF publication. This is a step backwards for citation and traceability. The register must remain.
No statutory review. A two-year statutory review must be included to evaluate operation of the reform and to adjust.
What you can do
Lodge a group submission. One or two pages can be enough. Sign as your organisation, not as an individual.
List any additional Model conditions and any additional Bespoke sections you want to see included. If DPHI doesn’t hear what the community wants, the community won’t get those changes.
Add local examples. Include a few conditions your council currently applies (eg bushfire, tree canopy retention, heritage curtilage, flood-planning level, dune management) that the standardised conditions do not capture. This is the most persuasive thing in a submission.
Encourage individual submissions. Share this submission guide with your members and mailing list. The number of individual submissions matter and are counted.
Contact your local MP. Copy your submission to your state MP, the Minister for Planning and the Shadow Minister.
Ask your council to submit. Councils are the consent authority most affected. A council Resolution or a General Manager submission carries weight.
PLEASE REMEMBER:
Conditions of consent are vitally important. It is often by the inclusion of certain conditions that developments can be made more acceptable to the community.
HOW TO LODGE:
The only way to lodge a submission is online:
DEADLINE: 5:00pm, 30 July 2026.
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