Local councils in South Australia will be placed under increased pressure to assess land divisions faster or risk being stripped of their responsibilities, as a result of reforms being introduced by the state government.

Councils will be given strict timeframes to assess land division applications and if not achieved, the state government will take control through a new Land Division Assessment Panel.

Metropolitan councils will also be encouraged to amalgamate some local government assessment panels and planning departments to enable more consistent decisions and faster assessments.

“We are putting councils on notice,” said the Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Nick Champion. “We need Local Government working hard to keep land divisions moving efficiently through the system so we can increase the supply of new housing.”

The changes will be implemented as part of the government’s Housing Roadmap, which aims to streamline both the code amendment process and resulting land division in order to see houses built on development sites up to 18 months faster.

Currently, it takes between 54 and 75 months to turn an empty block of land into a housing development. The revised system aims to get that down to between 36 and 63 months.

The reform encompasses the code amendment process, plus development assessment, land division, engineering approval, civil works and dwelling construction.

The government will introduce a standardised template for code amendments that will remove unnecessary details to initiating the rezoning of land.

The dashboard will also enable private proponents to track the progress of their rezoning application, with the average time for a code amendment to be processed cut to just six to nine months. Currently it is 11 months.

Other newly announced planning-related initiatives include:

• A regional planning portal;
• A new assessment tool to enable early development application decision for simple proposals;
• Enabling private planning professionals to assess small land division applications; and
• An automated development assessments for simple applications.