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The NSW Government’s proposed planning reforms aim to reduce development controls and bypass existing council checks.

What this means for our local community:

• Reduced scrutiny on environmental, heritage, and tree canopy protections.
• Lessens local council and community say over development standards.
• Fast-tracks assessment processes with fewer community consultation steps.

We need a strong community response to ensure local democracy and environmental protections aren’t sidelined.

URGENT DEADLINE: Submissions close at 5:00 PM on 30 July 2026.

FOKE is a member of BETTER PLANNING NETWORK (BPN). Read their discussion below:

Dear BPN members and friends

Further to our previous email, attached is the BPN submission guide for the
current exhibition of the NSW Government Improving Development Assessment
discussion paper.

This exhibition is concurrent with the Standard and Model Conditions of
Consent exhibition (for which we recently sent you a submission guide),
which is the tail-end of the DA process. Whereas this second exhibition is
about the start of the DA process.

It is proposed that most DA documents will not be mandatory and the
standards for those documents will be guidelines only. BPN believes that
developers must be required to provide adequate documentation to ensure the
consent authority can make an informed assessment. Additionally an online
tool is proposed to select what documents a developer should provide (but
without being required to do so).

The attached submission guide includes dot points that you can expand upon
as well as information on how to make your submission.

Submissions close 5pm 30 July 2026

Kind regards
Better Planning Network