Bushfire rebuilds in DA backlog as Bega Valley Council battles increase in DAs and shortage of staff

The news is unlikely to come as a surprise for anyone who has tried to get their DA approved. ACM was told of a Bega man whose finance lapsed when his DA took eight months.

A recent social media post on council's website about affordable housing drew comment on the DA situation with one person saying getting development approvals through in a timely manner would help, adding that waiting six months was far too long.

Acting director of community, engagement and planning, Emily Harrison has pointed to an increase in DAs and a shortage of staff.

"Since 2020/2021, council has been experiencing a significant increase in development applications. At the same time, we have been navigating the impacts of COVID-19 on our small but hardworking team of DA assessment planners," Ms Harrison said.

"There is also a current skills shortage in the planning field, which has affected council's ability to backfill vacant positions and recruit additional staff. These issues are being experienced by many councils in NSW and have resulted in a significant backlog of development applications awaiting assessment.

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"To help address this, we have recently employed a number of contract staff on a short-term basis, and we continue to prioritise employment generating and bushfire rebuild DAs," Ms Harrison said.

"Council was successful under the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants program for funding to employ a development hub officer, environmental health and building officer, a planner and a bushfire rebuild officer for 12 months," Ms Harrison said.

"The funding deed was executed in late March 2022. Council has successfully recruited the development hub officer and environment health and building officer, however has not yet been able to recruit a planner or bushfire rebuild officer," Ms Harrison said in response to questions from ACM.

Council has been told there are 116 DAs with the development hub for lodgement assessment with 40 of these awaiting additional information from the applicants. There are 108 applications pending allocation to an officer. The remaining 139 have been allocated to a planner and are under active assessment.

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