The New South Wales government has proposed a new planning policy to tackle climate risks to make sure new homes and infrastructure are better built to withstand extreme weather impacts.
The proposed Climate Change and Natural Hazards State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) introduces a planning framework to handle current and future climate risks to help communities overcome future climate threats like floods and bushfires.
The changes are part of a major overhaul of the state’s planning framework aimed at making it faster and more modern, to effectively speed up the delivery of homes, jobs and infrastructure.
The proposed policy brings together all decisions surrounding extreme weather hazards in the one SEPP, ensuring that councils and consent authorities will have the tools to make risk-informed decisions to safeguard lives, property and the environment so that homes and infrastructure are planned and built out of harm’s way.
Under the current system, climate change and natural hazard requirements in planning decisions are scattered across multiple legislative and regulatory frameworks. This fragmentation makes it harder for councils and authorities to assess risks clearly, leading to delays and uncertainty.
The proposed SEPP will apply statewide and replace the existing State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021.
NSW Minister for Climate Change Penny Sharpe said: “The effects of climate change are already apparent from the severity and frequency of floods, fires and heatwaves.
“This policy ensures our homes, businesses and infrastructure are built smarter and safer to withstand the extreme weather impacts we know are coming.”
Insurance giant Suncorp welcomed the state government’s proposed reforms of its planning framework.
Suncorp CEO Steve Johnston said the proposed SEPP is a step forward in building resilience to extreme weather across the state and sets a new national benchmark for climate-responsive planning.
“We have seen the results of fragmented legislative and regulatory frameworks lead to a concerning number of new homes being approved in floodplains, bushfire-prone areas and coastal regions exposed to inundation,” Johnston said.
The CEO said past decisions to allow unsuitable construction in floodplains or in bushfire-prone areas were directly contributing to cost-of-living pressures for homeowners.
“Insurers are dealing with the fallout. In the past five years alone, insured losses in Australia from extreme weather have reached an estimated AU$22.5 billion — up 67 per cent from the previous five-year period — and the risks continue to rise.”
