The council has halved the amount of time it takes to assess development applications (DAs) for new residences, following a comprehensive review of its 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," Mayor Michael Megna said.
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.
"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." Mayor Megna said that while this is a fantastic outcome, DA assessment times will naturally ebb and flow depending on the volume and complexity of applications received.
"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 City of Canada Bay 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 City of Canada Bay received $350,000 in funding to deliver this project as part of the NSW Government’s $4.9 million Faster Local Assessment Grant Program
