NSW Deemed Approval for Small-Scale Residential Development Applications

Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (60 Day Deemed Approval) Bill 2025

Private Member's Bill

25 Jun 2025: MPs in the first house are debating whether this bill is a good idea in principle.

Legislative Council

Legislative Assembly

Assent

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Topics

building permits development consent housing supply land development

Introduced by: John Ruddick MLC (LIBT)

Links to official parliament websites

Official page: progress through parliament

Official page: bill text and explanatory notes

Effects of this bill

If this bill passes, it means that:

Development applications for small residential homes are automatically approved if the consent authority does not decide within 60 days.
Modifications to existing small residential consents are automatically approved if the consent authority does not decide within 60 days.
Councils are taken to have issued construction, occupation, or subdivision certificates if they fail to do so within 60 days.
These automatic approvals exclude large flats, boarding houses, group homes, and seniors housing.
The Planning Minister must review if these rules increased housing supply every three years; the results must be tabled in Parliament.

News articles and press releases

Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (60 Day Deemed Approval) Bill 2025

The Hon. JOHN RUDDICK — 2025-06-25

If this bill gets up, we will see a lot more development, a lot more jobs, rents come down and prices come down. The bill amends the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 so that if a council or other consent authority fails to determine certain types of residential development applications within 60 days, approval will be deemed granted. Councils will have 60 days to make their minds up. It is a practice that has been commonplace across the European continent for many decades and, more recently, in the American state of Minnesota.