Strategic Town Planning

The economic, social and environmental needs of the community are constantly changing. These needs include access to employment, housing, transport, education and health services and open space.

‘Planning’ is the act of researching, analysing, anticipating and influencing change in an area in response to these needs. Planning is important because it affects everyone in the community and the built and natural environments in which we live. Strategic Planning outcomes result in updates to our planning system to ensure our planning controls are able to provide outcomes that implement our community vision. Development Assessment is the process of assessing whether developments achieve or do not achieve the aims of the planning system.

The ‘planning system’ is a framework of legislation, policy and practice, which enables and guides development to ensure we deliver these economic, social and environmental needs.

The NSW planning system

The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979

The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) is the principal legislation governing land use planning and development in NSW – from the overarching objectives through to how controls affecting development are made and how a development is assessed against those controls.

The Act is administered by the NSW Government.

The EP&A Act is supported by the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 (EP&A Regulations), which sets out how certain functions under the EP&A Act should be carried out, fees, procedures etc.

State, regional and local plans

The planning system has a hierarchical structure with the EP&A Act providing for three levels of planning – State, regional and local. Council’s role and influence across these three levels of planning varies.

Councils in NSW exercise their local planning functions within the broader legislative and policy context set by the State government. Specifically, councils have the primary responsibility for preparing and implementing local plans, however they are required to reflect State and regional planning priorities and actions.

The hierarchy of key State and local plans applying to the Waverley LGA is illustrated in the image below. These plans are prepared in accordance with Part 3 of the EP&A Act.

The planning framework

For more information about the planning framework in Waverley, and how you can get involved or have your say in the many stages of planning for our area, please refer to Council’s Community Participation Plan.

Click on the link to view more information on Waverley’s Local Strategic Planning Statement.

Waverley Council is guided by the Community Participation Plan (CPP), which seeks to make community participation in local planning matters clearer for the Waverley community. It does this by outlining in one place how and when Council will involve the community and receive input across various planning processes and decisions.

Community Participation Plan

The Community Participation Plan (CPP) was introduced following amendments to the EP&A Act in March 2018, which seek to ‘provide increased opportunity for community participation in environmental planning and assessment’. The Waverley CPP has been prepared to meet Council’s legislative requirements under Division 2.6 and Schedule 1 of the EP&A Act. It applies to the exercise of planning processes and decisions by Council, Council Officers and the Waverley Local Planning Panel (WLPP) only.