Consider running planning proposals and DAs concurrently to cut duplication.
Where possible, a council should consider whether a concurrent Planning Proposal and Development Application process can be run to reduce duplication and generate efficiencies via a dual process. This is intended to enable faster approvals and support housing delivery.
The Statement of Expectations Order 2026 is a Ministerial order made under section 9.6(1)(b) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 that tells councils what the Minister expects of them across development assessment, contributions, complying development, planning proposals and strategic planning. This particular expectation deals with planning proposals — the process by which a Local Environmental Plan is amended to change zoning or development standards — and encourages councils to run that rezoning process at the same time as a related development application, rather than making an applicant wait for the LEP change to finalise before lodging a DA.
All NSW councils (as the source states the Order 'Applies to: All NSW councils' and sets out what the Minister expects of councils when they prepare planning proposals). It is an expectation on councils, not a binding rule on applicants.
It comes into play when a council is dealing with a planning proposal (a proposed LEP amendment) that is linked to a development application for the same land or project — i.e. where both a rezoning and a development approval are needed to enable the development.
The expectation is conditioned by the words 'Where possible' and 'should consider' — it is not an absolute requirement, so a council need only consider a concurrent process where it is feasible. The source states no formal exemption, approval or carve-out mechanism.
Sits within the broader Statement of Expectations Order 2026 and the Faster Assessments program, and connects to the DA determination timeframe expectations (90/80/65 days) and to strategic planning expectations about LEP housing capacity. The Order relates to the Minister's powers under section 9.6(1)(b) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.
Where possible, a council should consider whether the planning proposal and the development application can be progressed together to reduce duplication and generate efficiencies.
The expectation is aimed at enabling housing, including housing diversity, by removing duplication that arises when the rezoning and DA stages are run separately, ultimately enabling faster approvals.
For Kiama, this bites where a landowner needs both a rezoning and a development consent to deliver housing — for example, unlocking a greenfield or infill site facing height, floor space ratio or lot-size constraints. Kiama Council would be expected to consider running the planning proposal and DA together to save time. In practice it is a 'should consider where possible' expectation rather than a hard rule, so it gives Kiama flexibility, but coastal-hazard, bushfire-fringe and heritage-town constraints may often make a genuine concurrent process harder to run. Unlike the DA timeframe targets, no specific days or thresholds attach to this planning-proposal expectation.
“Where possible, a council should consider whether a concurrent Planning Proposal and Development Application process can be done to reduce duplication and generate efficiencies via a dual process.”
“Planning proposals and Development Applications are a key feature of the NSW Planning system and are one of the main pathways to enable housing including housing diversity.”
“Enabling a concurrent process removes duplication when both stages are done separately and ultimately enable faster approvals.”
Reproduced from the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (planning.nsw.gov.au), © State of New South Wales, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Text extraction may introduce minor formatting artefacts — rely on the official source for anything decision-critical.
This is an unofficial reproduction provided for convenience. It is not the official version of the legislation. For the official, in-force version, see legislation.nsw.gov.au.