Council agreed unanimously on the extra funding at its latest monthly meeting on April 30. Two particularly outspoken councillors, as previously advised in The Free Press for much quicker handling of planning and development approvals, welcomed council’s decision.
Cr Andrew Kennedy said council’s planning staff “need help, helping communities grow”.
“Without the planning you don’t grow,” he said.
Cr David Longley described council’s resolution as “fantastic”.
“We’ve been starved of development,” he said.
“This will help development.”
Federation Council has been aware of the resourcing issues within council’s planning and development services for a number of years due primarily to the introduction of the Planning Portal.
The portal has placed a large additional workload on the staff, both internally and also externally, in managing many customers through this difficult process.
“Council continues to be supportive of lobbying state government regarding the impost of the NSW Planning Portal on local government and have provided additional funds to the services in the past year, however the services are still under resourced,” council’s director planning place and sustainability Susan Appleyard said.
“Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure data shows the state average workload per full time assessment officer was 43 applications compared with Federation Council officers who were dealing with 90 application per year each.”
At its March 2024 meeting, council resolved to adopt recommendation 36 from the independent review undertaken by Newcastle University authored by Professor J Drew to provide additional staff to council’s planning and development services.
Federation Council is not alone in having a shortfall in staff in these services. The Planning Institute of Australia's Publication -Planners in Australia - State of the Profession Report 2023 outlines this as a national trend.
Council is serviced by 1 full-time planner and 2 full-time building surveyors. “At the time of writing this report, there are 76 outstanding development applications, 40 outstanding construction certificate applications, 6 outstanding subdivision works certificates, 13 Occupation certificates and 22 section 68 applications under the Local Government Act ranging from plumbing approvals through to event approvals, total 157,” Ms Appleyard said.
