Project director of regulatory planning and reform Rebecca Fox has announced that from Monday, 21 October, WWCC will reduce the hours that DA applicants can contact council planners and building surveyors. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
If you are looking to contact one of Wagga Wagga City Council’s planners or building surveyors, you will now need to do so earlier in the day.
WWCC announced that from Monday (21 October), planners and surveyors will only be accepting inquiries between 8:30 am and 1 pm to allocate more of their time to approving development applications (DAs).
Council project director of regulatory planning and reform Rebecca Fox said the new hours had been decided upon after a series of evaluations and trial reductions earlier in the year.
“Most residents want good decisions, but they want them made quickly, so we’re trying to use our resources most effectively to ensure that residents are supported to put good applications in,” Ms Fox said.
“When we get good-quality applications, we can assess them quite quickly and reduce the duty services.
“We think from the data and the analysis that we’ve done, that by just reducing the timeframe shortly, we can still answer the queries in an appropriate way, but free enough time for staff to actually do the work that comes after an application has been submitted.”
Since taking up her role four months ago, Ms Fox and her team have worked at reducing the backlog of DAs awaiting approval. The backlog reached a high of 189 in June this year, but WWCC has reduced the figure to 103 while also assessing more than 240 others.
“We know if they come in and we need to request any further information for a development application, it takes us on average 69 days to assess,” Ms Fox said.
”Now this drops dramatically if we have all the correct information from the start, taking on average 36 days.
“Reducing the hours for inquires may sound counterproductive, but it’s all about supporting people and freeing up time to actually do the work that follows assessment.”
The council will look to further reduce the wait time for DA approval once it implements a new AI trial that will flag any flaws or missing information in applications before being submitted.
“The trial will work at the front end of DAs,” Ms Fox said. ”AI technology will assess an application before telling the applicant, “Yes, it complies with all the regulatory and legislative compliances” or “No, your plannings don’t meet these requirements and they can’t yet be submitted.”
While there is no official date for when the AI technology will be implemented, the reduced consultation hours officially began on Monday (21 October).
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