Policy and Advocacy is already off to a productive start at The Institute in 2023. Our Affordable Housing event on February 3 provided an opportunity for our members to hear from each of the major parties in preparation for the upcoming election. Thanks to The Hon. Rob Stokes, Paul Scully MP, Rose Jackson MP and Cate Faehrmann MLC for your informative discussions. Thanks also to PIA, AILA and EA our event partners, and to all our members who attended this successful event.
NSW KEY ELECTION PRIORITIES
With the NSW State Election fast approaching, The Institute has published our Key Election Priorities based on the findings of our recent NSW member survey. Thank you to all those who completed the survey to inform our position heading into the Election.
Read our Key Election Priorities in full here.
NSW BUILDING REFORMS
Important changes to the NSW Building Reforms are now in place. Please see the information below and ensure you remain up-to-date with these amendments.
Updated Compliance Declaration Forms
After much collaborative engagement with the NSW Fair Trading team, the updated Compliance Declaration forms for Class 2 buildings along with further guidance material have now been implemented.
Practitioners must now prepare and complete a separate design compliance declaration form for each regulated design.
If a multiple regulated design declaration form was completed before the updated forms were made available, these can be lodged on the NSW Planning Portal. A transitional arrangement means these forms can be accepted until 5 March 2023.
From 6 March 2023, design practitioners will be required to use the updated forms to prepare a Design Compliance Declaration.
Visit the NSW Fair Trading website to access:
Environmental Planning & Assessment Amendment Regulation 2023
The Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Amendment (Construction Certificates) Regulation 2023 (Amending Regulation) commenced on February 3, 2023 and now has legal effect.
The Amending Regulation introduces a package of changes including how the edition of the Building Code of Australia (BCA) is determined for certain construction certificate (CC) applications lodged on or after 3 February 2023. Some of the key changes include:
- For multi storey buildings that are subject to multiple CCs, the edition of the BCA applying to CC applications issued after the CC for the ‘entrance floor’ has been issued (‘later in time CC application/s’), is the edition that applied to the CC application which includes the ‘entrance floor’.
- For developments that are subject to modified CCs to identify that the edition of the BCA applying to all applications to modify development is that edition which applied to the ‘original’ CC application that is the subject of the modification.
More information can be found here:
- Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Amendment (Construction Certificates) Regulation 2023
- Summary of changes contained in the Environmental Planning and Assessment (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Amendment (Construction Certificates) Regulation 2023
CAPPED DAILY RATES FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS
Although we were able at this stage to prevent the introduction of capped daily rates for architectural services on NSW government contracts, these below market rates are still in place as ‘guidance only’. We remain concerned that the processes currently in place to gather data are still problematic, and we have once again written to the Treasurer to advise him of our members’ concerns.
See our letter to Minister Kean.
MLC BUILDING NORTH SYDNEY
Minister Griffin has directed the de-listing of the MLC building from the State Heritage Register due to the technical errors made by former Minister Harwin in directing its initial listing. We again wrote to Minister Griffin and Minister Franklin urging them to re-list this significant building.
Their most recent response can be found here.
FEDERAL BUDGET SUBMISSION 2023
Our National Policy & Advocacy team members have worked diligently to provide the Federal Government with The Institute’s key priorities for the upcoming Federal Budget. Find our submission here.
Lisa King
Policy & Advocacy Manager NSW
lisa.king@architecture.com.au
