By Staff Writer
 
The release of the NSW Housing Code, which outlines how residential developments can be approved within ten days, has been met with approval from developers and skepticism from local government.
 
The code outlines how 41 types of minor developments around the home can proceed without planning approval.

Aaron Gadiel, the chief executive of developer’s lobby group, Urban Taskforce said that the code gives “ordinary home builders the right to get an approval for a new house and extension within 10 days”.

He said the housing code “will help ‘mum and dad’ home builders get past local council delays”.

“It takes an average of 123 days to approve development applications for new free standing house in Sydney,” Mr Gadiel said.

“This kind of delay is inexcusable.”

Local Government in the state were far less enthusiastic about the release warning the new code “is likely to add to the confusion surrounding the planning process as it has had no trial on a council level to make certain that it is workable”.

President of the Local Government Association, Cr Genia McCaffrey, said local communities are sick of being experimented on by the NSW Planning Department.

"Over the past ten years we’ve had a succession Planning Ministers, each of them with their own pet projects that keep making the system more complex," she said.

"The State Government is now adding yet another experiment to the process, with the new housing code announced today.

"We completely support streamlining the planning process, but it has to be done the right way.

"The Associations have repeatedly asked the Minister to trial the codes properly in the real world, but we’ve been ignored and unfortunately they will now form a live experiment on the NSW public."

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