South Australia's new planning and development system is now live!

The State Government's new planning system has now officially launched!

From 19 March 2021, the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (PDI Act) replaces the Development Act 1993 bringing into effect a single source of state-wide planning rules for simpler, clearer and more consistent zoning policy via the Planning and Design Code and ePlanning platform.

More information is available on the PlanSA website.

Background

In April 2016, the South Australian Parliament passed the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (PDI Act) to implement a new planning system which will replace the current system under the Development Act 1993.

This new legislation introduces the biggest changes to the South Australian Planning System in 25 years and will affect, amongst other matters, how development applications are lodged and assessed.

Key Changes Proposed

New land use planning documents will be introduced to replace the Development Plan and South Australian Planning Strategy.

Changes delivered to date include:

  • Establishing an independent State Planning Commission and committees to support the commission.
  • Establishing a new Community Engagement Charter.
  • Establishing an Accredited Professionals Scheme.
  • Setting the state planning policies.
  • Setting an assessment framework and Planning and Design Code for out of Council areas.
  • Partial delivery of an on-line planning portal to support the new system.

Upcoming changes include:

  • Delivering new planning tools for professionals and the public.
  • Delivering an online planning portal as a one-stop-shop for planning information and lodging development applications.
  • The creation of a Planning and Design Code (Code) (required under the PDI Act). This Code will become the state's single planning rulebook for assessing all development applications, removing the existing 72 Council specific Development Plans across all council areas including the existing Development Plan that currently applies to the City of Charles Sturt. Every property will have its planning provisions / zoning modified to some degree by the revocation of Council’s Development Plan and its replacement with the State-wide draft Code.

Consultation on the draft Planning and Design Code

Further to an initial round of community consultation in early 2020, the State Planning Commission released a revised version of the Code for a further six weeks of public consultation in November 2020.

Council's Role

The City of Charles Sturt will now undertake new strategic planning projects and assess new development applications in accordance with the new legislation.

Council will continue to monitor and provide feedback to the Government of South Australian in relation to the implementation of the new legislation.