TWO of Perth's biggest builders have welcomed last week's announcement of planning reforms, but are concerned about the timeliness of their introduction and have urged the state government to further simplify the planning process.
TWO of Perth's biggest builders have welcomed last week's announcement of planning reforms, but are concerned about the timeliness of their introduction and have urged the state government to further simplify the planning process.
Planning Minister John Day is seeking public comment on a proposal to implement development assessment panels to eliminate the need for dual approvals under Western Australian planning schemes.
Last week, Mr Day said five-person specialist panels, rather than local government authorities or the Western Australian Planning Commission, would assess metropolitan development applications valued at or more than $2 million.
"What we've proposed is anything over $2 million in the metro area and $1 million in regional and rural areas," Mr Day said.
"Anything above those levels with the exception of single residential developments will be covered; therefore I think that this will play a substantial role in getting projects under way on a timely basis without some of the grossly excessive delays that have been there in the past."
Under the proposal the panels will consist of a mix of independent professional experts, including town planners, architects and builders and elected council representatives.
Alcock/Brown-Neaves Group managing director Dale Alcock said the proposal was a welcome signal the government was committed to improving the approvals process but was concerned about the urgency of its implementation.
"I believe that we're not likely to see any of these panels in play until minimum, the middle of next year," Mr Alcock told WA Business News.
"That worries me that that's a fair time to enact the changes.
"Major reform needs to be enacted very quickly. I still maintain that the government should come out and say we've got a crisis in terms of planning and building approvals in WA and until that happens, until you actually admit that you're deep in manure, the big decisions don't get made.
"It's about making sure that we are, as a state, open for business, that we can play out the major strategic developments required to drive the state forward, and that these things don't get waylaid by councils that are too small, and in many cases lack the sophistication and professionalism in their ranks to deal with the applications."
Mr Alcock said the government would have to implement more initiatives to improve the approvals process, particularly with regards to building licence approvals.
"Where building licence applications are concerned, we've had private certification of building licenses in this state on the agenda for 10 years and yet we still haven't got it," he said.
"Whereas in Victoria and New South Wales we could draw plans today and we could get a private certifier in here tomorrow and be on site the next day."
Danmar Homes managing director Dan White agreed, saying the length of time taken by individual councils to produce approvals was too long.
"We have a situation now where some councils are taking six weeks to assess. And assess means to allocate a building application. It's just too long," Mr White said.
"It stops us from being able to schedule our workloads. Financially it is extending our work times, which obviously has an impact on our costs as well.
"The frustrations are really for the client, of course the builder gets the blame when times blow out like that, but there's not a lot we can do."
Mr Alcock said he hoped the introduction of the panels for major developments would eventually lead to an improvement in the planning process for smaller approvals.
"As a result of getting these larger developments in some sort of approvals process that's more efficient it may well have a flow-on effect to the smaller approvals by freeing up the local authorities to deal better with those," he said.
Mr White said the implementation of the panels would free up planning resources in local governments for smaller projects.
"Major projects will not be allowed to get bogged down in councils which will free up planning officers in councils to deal with what we do," he said.
