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The NSW government has launched a tender to bring artificial intelligence into the planning system, aiming to slash assessment times for state significant development applications.
With Sydney ranked the second-least affordable city in the world, the government warned that the state is losing twice as many young people as it is gaining.
According to the Minister for Planning’s office, the AI solution will review documentation before lodgement, assess applications against key criteria, complete post-submission checks, and accelerate approvals.
They said that the final decision will nevertheless be made by a human.
Currently, the average assessment of major projects drags on for nearly nine months, creating a bottleneck in getting housing construction underway.
“This is a game changer – 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,” Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul 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.”
The move follows the Early Adopter Grant Program, which has already seen 16 councils trial AI-based solutions to improve local planning processes and speed up approvals at the council level.
By integrating AI into the assessment of major housing projects, the Minns government hopes to modernise NSW’s planning system, ensuring homes are built faster.
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