Hidden Cost of Outdated Planning Research in NSW

Every week a development application sits waiting for assessment, someone pays for it. The developer carries financing costs on land they can't build on. The would-be homebuyer waits longer for housing that doesn't exist yet. The council fields calls from frustrated applicants. And underlying much of this delay is a problem that rarely makes headlines: outdated planning research.

In NSW, where councils assess roughly 85 per cent of residential development applications, the quality and currency of planning data shapes everything from assessment timelines to housing affordability. Yet the true cost of working with stale information remains largely invisible—hidden in extended processing times, repeated information requests, and projects that never proceed at all.

What counts as outdated planning research?

Planning research encompasses the data, overlays, constraints, and regulatory information that councils, developers, and consultants rely on to prepare and assess development applications. This includes zoning maps, heritage registers, flood mapping, bushfire prone land designations, biodiversity layers, and the various state environmental planning policies that apply to a site.

When this information is incomplete, incorrectly digitised, or simply out of date, applications get lodged with gaps. Assessors issue requests for additional information. The clock stops. Days turn into weeks while applicants scramble to source data that should have been readily available from the outset.

The problem compounds when different agencies hold different versions of the same information, or when state-level datasets don't align with council records. A development that triggers referral to multiple agencies can find itself waiting on concurrence from bodies working with mismatched baselines.

The measurable costs of delay

The financial impact of planning delays is well documented, even if the specific contribution of outdated data is harder to isolate.

Consider the variation in NSW council processing times. According to Property Council analysis of FY2023–24 data, Liverpool City Council averaged approximately 256 days for development application assessment. North Sydney Council reported around 207 days for the same period. Randwick City Council, tracking its performance against ministerial benchmarks, reported an average of 105 days.

That's a spread of 151 days between the fastest and slowest of just three councils—more than five months of additional waiting time depending on which local government area a project happens to fall within.

For a developer carrying a site acquisition loan, each additional month of delay translates directly to holding costs. Interest payments continue. Rates and land tax accrue. Project management and consultancy fees mount. A 2024 analysis by the Grattan Institute noted that land now accounts for more than 70 per cent of residential property value in Australia, up from around 50 per cent in 1990. When land costs dominate project budgets this heavily, delays don't just slow delivery—they fundamentally reshape project viability.

Where outdated data creates friction

Planning delays don't emerge from a single source. But outdated or fragmented research contributes to several friction points that councils and applicants repeatedly encounter.

Information requests and rework represent one of the most visible symptoms. When applicants lodge DAs based on incomplete site analysis, assessors have little choice but to request additional information. Each request triggers a "stop the clock" period—time that doesn't count toward the council's reported assessment days but absolutely counts toward the applicant's wait. Local Government NSW has noted that published league tables, while valuable for transparency, don't capture the days and weeks councils spend waiting for responses to these requests.

Inter-agency coordination presents another challenge. A development requiring concurrence from state agencies—whether for flooding, biodiversity, heritage, or infrastructure—depends on all parties working from consistent, current datasets. When they aren't, reconciliation delays follow.

Applicant uncertainty compounds the problem at the front end. When publicly available planning information is difficult to access, inconsistent, or known to be outdated, applicants face a choice: commission expensive consultancy reports to fill the gaps, or lodge and hope for the best. Neither approach serves the system well.

Practical steps to reduce hidden costs

For councils, developers, and planning professionals working within the current system, several evidence-based approaches can reduce the hidden costs of outdated planning research.

Establish baselines using public data. NSW now publishes league tables for council and state agency performance. Individual councils like Randwick publish their own dashboards tracking assessment days against ministerial benchmarks. Before investing in any intervention, establish where current performance sits and which stages of the process contribute most to delay.

Audit planning data currency. Identify which datasets your organisation relies on most heavily and when they were last updated. Heritage registers, flood mapping, and biodiversity layers are common culprits for currency gaps.

Account for inter-agency waits. When estimating project timelines, don't assume council assessment days represent total wait time. Referrals to state agencies, utility providers, and other external bodies can add weeks or months that don't appear in headline statistics.

Invest in continuous monitoring. Planning controls change. State environmental planning policies are amended. Local environmental plans are updated. Overlays shift. For portfolios spanning multiple sites or LGAs, static point-in-time research becomes stale faster than many organisations recognise.