Last financial year, City of Ryde approved developments worth $824 million, putting it fourth (behind Sydney, Rockdale and Shoalhaven) on the list of councils with the highest value of DA approvals.
This DA value increase was due in part to a very large number of applications from the Macquarie Park Business Precinct for multi-million corporate developments.
Sue Weatherley, Environment & Planning Group Manager for the City of Ryde, said: “The complexity and size of these DAs with no increase in resources had the potential to slow down the processing of smaller applications.
“In response, we have overhauled the entire planning lifecycle and instituted radical changes. This has resulted in the City of Ryde slashing by half its DA processing times for both small scale and large developments to a median of 44 days.”
To achieve this, initiatives undertaken by Council have included:
• cutting red tape by introducing clear plain English guidelines
• promoting upfront dialogue between skilled staff and applicants
• capturing quality early information in the process in order to provide better customer service
• preventing delays by resolving issues in conditions of consent
The new processes have been so successful, that other Councils, State and Federal Government agencies (including State Planning, Sydney Water, Rural Fire Services, Land Titles Office and Energy Australia) have come to the City of Ryde to see the new systems and improved processes at work for themselves.
Development Performance Monitoring
The Department of Planning has released its Monitoring Local Development Performing report for 2006-07 examining the number and value of local development, determination times, staffing resources and legal statistics. The City of Ryde was identified as:
• One of the Council’s with the highest value of approved DAs, at $824 million (4th behind Sydney, Rockdale and Shoalhaven)
• Fifth quickest in the State to deal with commercial/retail/office development.
• Ninth* in the measure of number of staff per DA determined (150 DAs per EFT staff member – more than twice the average for State (72) and Group 3 Council (57).
*Penrith and City of Ryde were the only metropolitan Councils in the Top 10.
Council is further reviewing its processes and is working through a number of initiatives that will allow individual applicants to monitor on-line how their DAs are progressing.
A key area for ongoing improvement has been to reduce the overall growth mean assessment times.
Ends
Media contact: Lee Kirkland, City of Ryde, T 9952 8083 M 0434 306 444
