The NSW government’s plan to fast track planning approvals, announced last week, could be a slippery slope to chaos and conflict in strata schemes.

Under legislation presented to Parliament aimed at modernising NSW’s nearly 50-year-old planning system, local authorities will have only 10 days to accept or reject “complying developments” or they will be deemed to have been approved.

To get a complying development approval, would-be renovators need to get the signature of a qualified certifier – like a builder or architect – saying that their project meets basic planning requirements.

Now, factor in the Design and Building Professionals Act (DBPA), which means you have to get the same qualified person to approve your reno if its budget is over a relatively small amount, and you could already have a complying development certificate (CDC).

This can be a sneaky way of avoiding full scrutiny of your plans.  A few years ago a neighbour removed a bedroom and extended his lounge “so I can have bigger parties”.  Since party boy was already a major pain with employing live bands at his shindigs allied with a tendency to ignore complaints, this should never have been approved.

The local council by-laws quite clearly state that you need planning permission if you want to change the layout of your apartment – for instance to avoid having noisy rooms next to bedrooms (which is exactly what was intended here).

But chummy was a major player in the property industry so it easy way too easy for him to get a Complying Development Certificate.  He took that to the strata committee and told them they couldn’t refuse it and then took it to the council and said he has strata committee approval too.

Result? Partaaaaaay! I recall the Fair Trading mediation was a farce, with the mediator demanding to know if I was complaining about the timing of the noise or the frequency of the disruption as I couldn’t have both. I also recall PartyBoy refusing to commit to not breaching by-laws with loud parties in the future.

So under the proposed fast-track planning approval system, rather than running your plans through the strata process, you could take your CDC and plans to your local council first and wait out the ten days to get your default approval.

If you take your plans to the strata committee, they have up to three months to approve or reject an application for a minor renovation before it is deemed to have been okayed by default.

For major  renos, seeking approvals and the necessary by-laws at a general meeting could take months.

But by-pass the strata system and what strata committee is going to risk the expense and hassle of fighting a plan that’s already been “approved” by a higher authority?

It may not be as simple as that – when is it ever? But the potential for conflict and confusion is massive. So, when this gets to the various parliamentary committees that it has to pass through, could someone please ask, “what about strata?’

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