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An Upper House Inquiry into Regulation of Building Standards, Building Quality and Building Disputes has taken submission and conducted public hearings. Urbanised submitted a confidential submission to the Office of Fair Trading. The new Building Commissioner has a roving brief and is conducting his own investigations. We understand that there are numerous ideas being floated at the moment.
Read MoreThe Gateway process is for amendments to land use zoning and development control for uses different to those prescribed in the Council’s Local Environmental Plan. There are now more than 3,200 planning proposals going through the Gateway process with the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment at the moment.
Read MoreA new round of forecasts have been completed by Urbanised and there is a shift in the balance between demand and supply.
Read MoreThere is a great deal of concern about the quality of apartment building in Sydney that is rocking confidence. Many of the solutions being offered will do little for those presently affected and don’t look at the real problem - rectification. This piece suggests that the present problems relate to the collapse of HIH in 2001 and a new insurance regime should and can be reintroduced along with other measures.
Read MoreMajor NSW Public Service Restructure Follows New Ministerial Appointments
Hon Rob Stokes is back as Minister for Planning and Public Spaces - a move that has been broadly welcomed by the industry. The industry’s relationship with the government was at an all-time low in the lead up to the election and there will be a great deal of repair work to be done over coming months. Minister Stokes is a great appointment to get things back on track because he is trusted, has experience in the portfolio and an almost unparalleled knowledge of the planning system.
There has also been some significant changes in leadership in the NSW public sector. Carolyn McNally has been replaced by Jim Betts as the head of a new mega department - Planning and Industry. Jim Betts was formerly the head of Infrastructure NSW and comes to the portfolio with a strong reputation for getting things done.
The departmental changes are also interesting. The Office of Local Government and Office of Environment and Heritage will no longer be independent agencies and come under the new Planning and Industry mega department. The new department brings together the former Planning and Environment and Industry Clusters. It is intended to deliver greater levels of integration and efficiency across key areas such as long-term planning, precincts, infrastructure priorities, open space, the environment, natural resources, land, water, mining, energy, and industries. In particular, there will be an emphasis on regional NSW.
There are also some interesting changes taking place in Premier and Cabinet that relate to the industry. There are no changes to the Greater Sydney Commission or Infrastructure NSW. But Urban Growth and the Barangaroo Delivery Authority will both cease to be executive agencies and the functions will move to Infrastructure NSW. The Natural Resources Commission will move to the Planning & Industry Cluster.
Landcom implemented a major restructure - the Monday immediately following the election. From the outside, there is no clarity on what is happening there at the moment. Additionally, there is nothing being said about Land and Housing Corporation and where that will fit in the new public service structure. This will all become clearer over coming days or weeks.
This is a significant restructure and was probably planned well in advance of the election. At the moment it seems to make sense. The challenge will be ensuring such large departments can be persuaded to pursue the policy priorities of the new Government and Minister.
Three years on what has been achieved. There have been successful collective sale negotiations with schemes. However, collective sale was so successful in areas such as Macquarie Park that the State Government has but a moratorium on planning proposals.
Read MoreThere are some pretty big shifts occurring in a falling Sydney property market. The government was concerned about affordability and guess what? The market adjusted to help largely solve that problem. Now all political parties are talking about over development – even Mark Latham One Nation candidate was talking about it the other day. Like affordability, it looks like we are seeing an adjustment take place that will fix the so called over development problem. Significant declines in approvals and to a marginally lesser extent completions are being experienced at the moment. It looks as though the Sydney region will struggle to reach 30,000 approvals in 2018.
Read More2019 will see new product growth in the Australian property market
Read MoreIn 2019 finance will be available to developers but not from the normal channels … the news is not so good for consumer mortgages
Read MorePolitics is a tricky game. This time though the property industry has one of its former best policy minds as PM. It’s just as well because we are entering into some turbulent times with some threshold policy issues that will need to be solved.
Read MoreThe 2018-19 NSW Budget forebodes substantial taxes and charges rises for the property industry. Policy almost always lags market performance and this can accelerate downturns. The Government thinks the industry will tapper off towards the end of 2018-19 - we think it has already started. It is uncertain where the industry will land over the next twelve months.
Read MoreWith much fanfare the Premier announced that the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) will now report to her rather than the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts. I am more sanguine about this than many other commentators I have read over the past day. It could be like when the Premier took over the former Urban Growth which was proved to be fraught or it could be like the establishment of Infrastructure NSW that appears to have been a success.
It is important to understand the genesis of the GSC and the linkages with other government agencies within the NSW bureaucracy. This is not a fight between Ministers it is more likely a struggle between agencies. I remember sitting with a group of people with Matthew Guy the former Victorian Planning Minister talking about setting up something like the previously successful Victorian Planning Authority. He had sagely advice and talked about strategy, implementation and delivery. He also said that we should set up a Commission that should extend from the whole Sydney basin encompassing Newcastle all the way through to Wollongong. We went back and wrote a discussion paper. The development industry's view was that there needed to be a delineation between strategy, implementation and delivery in the planning system. I recall that we wanted a Commission to do the strategy, the Department of Planning should do the implementation and that the functions of Landcom would change to enable it be involved in delivery by working with the industry to help with multi agency blockages.
Four years down the track, the GSC should be called the Western SC if you read what they put out in conjunction with the announcement with the Premier and there is no Landcom in the form it was in back then or what we anticipated it to be. The Department of Planning is the only constant. The interaction between these groups over the last couple of years tells the story and forebodes the task at hand. Property developers in Sydney have been subjected to pin balling between the Department of Planning and GSC. The Department of Planning wouldn't make a decision until the GSC produced its district plans, these plans took far too long to produce and nobody knew who had responsibility for what. It was a contrived chaos and the losers were the people of Sydney. In the midst of this, The Chairman of Landcom announced that the CEO had left and he had assumed the MD role in the interim (he now has the job permanently). The past couple of years has been a dark period in property policy.
So the Premier has given herself up to fix it. The key to success will be the delineation of strategy, implementation and delivery between the agencies. This will be where the game plays out in the bureaucracy. It looks like the Premier has started this process by handing over responsibility for the District Plans under S 3.1 of the EP and A Act to the Department of Planning. In a perfect world, The GSC should be responsible for strategy, the Department of Planning for implementation of the District Plans. It seems easy but this will be tough as the people that design the strategy always stick their nose into implementation and this should be avoided at all costs. That leaves one missing link - Landcom. There needs to be a flying squad in NSW to combat agency inertia. Landcom cant do it in its present form as it is focussing on affordable housing amongst other things. Give it back the flying squad mandate to untie the gordian knot.
The final piece is to get Cabinet backing. Former Premier and Brad Hazzard then the Planning Minister created the Housing Supply Sub Committee of Cabinet and it worked well. The Premier will need the support from her colleagues to ensure that good policy and justifiable politics prevail in the property industry.