The NSW Government is integrating Artificial Intelligence solutions into the assessment of State Significant Development (SSD) applications, in an effort to reduce timeframes for major developments.
As the state takes on a bigger role in assessing major housing projects, this is an important step in making sure the speed of assessment is improved and quality of assessment is maintained.
The NSW Government has launched a tender for an AI solution to support SSD assessments as part of its ongoing improvement to the digital systems that support the NSW planning system.
With Sydney as the second least affordable city in the world, and NSW losing twice as many young people as it is gaining, the government has said that there is a need to improve every area of the planning system to make sure homes are built faster.
The new system will be required to:
- Conduct an intelligent review of documentation before lodgement
- Accurately assess applications against key criteria
- Reduce overall assessment timeframes, and
- Complete post-submission checks to accelerate finalisation
Currently, the average SSD assessment takes around eight and a half months, with three months in government hands. By deploying AI across these processes, the NSW Government expects to significantly reduce this timeframe while maintaining human oversight with the final decision required to be made by a person.
The initiative builds on the Government’s Early Adopter Grants Program, which is already helping 16 councils trial AI-based solutions to improve local planning processes.
NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, said this is a gamechanger.
“We’re maintaining the quality of assessment but continuing to speed things up to get more housing projects underway more quickly allowing construction to get underway and new keys into new doors,” Scully said.
“In the midst of a national shortage of planners, we need those we do have to be doing the nuanced and complex assessment work – not checking for typos or formatting errors.
“This will add an important tool to the suite of tools available to planners as they assess larger and more complex proposals.
“This is about using technology to do more of the heavy lifting in the planning system while leaving the final decision to a human decision maker.
“The integration of AI systems into the NSW planning system puts NSW at the forefront of digital integration as the only state in Australia adopting AI for larger-scale developments.”
