Real Estate
9 November, 2026
NSW planning system failing, forum hears
The NSW planning system has become so complex that it is preventing the very housing communities need, the Southern Highlands Community Forum has heard.
The NSW planning system has become so complex that it is preventing the very housing communities need, the Southern Highlands Community Forum has heard.
Neville Fredericks – an experienced urbanist/developer – said it was time for the system to be fundamentally reformed.
Speaking at the forum’s October meeting, Mr Fredericks argued that NSW's planning system had evolved into a bureaucratic maze that prioritises regulatory compliance over good planning outcomes, leaving communities struggling with housing affordability and a lack of housing choice.
"From a planning perspective, we live in a bureaucracy, not a democracy," Mr Fredericks told the forum.
He said the system had also sidelined political leaders who were finding it difficult to represent their communities on planning matters.
Mr Fredericks - who has decades of experience in urban design, development and local government - said the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 had reached its use-by date.
"It's not serving the community well at the moment and efforts to untangle it are getting us into more complexity," he said.
Mr Fredericks highlighted a striking mismatch between the types of housing available in the Southern Highlands and the changing needs of its population.
While 26 per cent of Wingecarribee households have just one occupant, 91 per cent of the shire's housing consists of detached homes.
Only nine per cent comprises smaller housing alternatives such as terraces, flats and units.
Across NSW, by comparison, detached houses account for approximately 66 per cent of housing.
Mr Fredericks said the planning system made it comparatively easy to build large, detached houses while creating substantial regulatory obstacles for smaller, more affordable homes, including townhouses, secondary dwellings and other forms of medium-density housing.
The people most disadvantaged are single-income households, young people, older residents wanting to downsize and those seeking affordable rental accommodation.
Mr Fredericks also challenged the continued reliance on low-density suburban expansion to meet housing targets.
He estimated that adopting more compact, diverse housing models could save approximately 600 acres of greenfield land in the Wingecarribee Shire while accommodating the same number of new dwellings.
Such an approach could also reduce car dependence, improve access to services, create more socially connected neighbourhoods and lower the long-term infrastructure burden on council.
He argued that conventional suburban development placed increasing pressure on local government finances because low-density housing generates relatively limited revenue compared with the long-term cost of maintaining roads and infrastructure.
Rather than continually expanding into surrounding rural landscapes, Mr Fredericks advocated for well-designed, walkable neighbourhoods offering more diverse housing to suit lifestyle and life stage and greater access to walk-to local retail and services.
Mr Fredericks said that successive layers of regulations, multiple approval authorities and an increasingly risk-averse regulatory culture have made the planning process unpredictable, expensive and unnecessarily adversarial.
He described examples of projects designed to deliver smaller, more affordable housing that became financially unviable after years of delays and legal proceedings.
He also highlighted contradictions between planning policies, including the example of Robertson, where council policies encourage shop-top housing while applicable height restrictions can prevent it from being built.
Mr Fredericks argued that the problem was not simply excessive regulation, but a system that had lost sight of its purpose.
Planning should consider what communities need, how neighbourhoods function and whether development delivers good social, environmental, economic and communal health outcomes.
Instead, he said, planning professionals have increasingly become compliance officers rather than planners.
“I would like them to become town planners again,” he said.
Another speaker at the forum’s October meeting, local architect Andy Leeman, also described the planning system as broken
“It’s a nightmare to navigate and in my opinion the outcomes are pretty poor.”
Mr Leeman compared his own experiences in the Southern Highlands to his experiences in Montana (United States) where he lived for 20 years.
In Montana he said he had been able to chat with planning staff, provide what they needed and get development applications basically “stamped on the spot”.
In comparison it had taken 12 months to get approval from Wingecarribee Shire Council for a small and simple granny flat in Bowral – including a seven-month period when council “went completely dark on us”.
“It was such a frustrating process,” he said.
Mr Leeman said it was time-consuming and costly to get approval for townhouses and granny flats but someone building a standalone home in a new subdivision could get council approval within one to three months.
He said the outcomes for the community were “awful” socially, economically and environmentally.
A WinZero spokesperson said the Southern Highlands needed a planning system that puts communities at the centre of decisions about their future.
"Good planning is not about approving more development at any cost,” the spokesperson said.
“It is about creating the right kind of development, in the right places, with genuine community involvement from the outset.
"We need housing that meets the changing needs of our community while protecting the biodiversity, rural landscapes, local character and natural environment that make the Southern Highlands such a special place to live."
The spokesperson said Mr Fredericks’ presentation raised a fundamental question for NSW: how can the planning system protect the environment and the character of communities while also delivering the housing, infrastructure and services people need?
“For the Southern Highlands, the challenge is particularly urgent,” the spokesperson said.
“With increasing development pressure, housing affordability concerns and valuable natural landscapes at stake, the region needs a planning system capable of delivering better outcomes rather than simply processing applications.”
NEVEILLE FREDERICKS’ SIX SUGGESTED KEY REFORMS TO FIX THE PLANNING SYSTEM:
1. Introduce a simplified Planning Act for Housing and Urban Development that explicitly addresses housing needs alongside environmental protection.
2. Make planning regulations clear, accessible and understandable, so ordinary residents and professionals can navigate the system with greater certainty.
3. Assess development on its merits and planning objectives, rather than relying excessively on rigid numerical standards.
4. Establish a single planning authority focused on housing delivery, reducing the complexity of referrals across multiple government agencies.
5. Allow greater flexibility and innovation in development, while retaining essential standards and safeguards.
6. Introduce an opt-in pathway for new planning rules, allowing applicants to choose between existing regulations and a simpler, modern framework during the transition.
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