In a political environment that is focussed on addressing the housing crisis and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the planning process, permit applicants are wondering if more can be done to clarify and streamline the ‘public notification’ period required for planning permit applications.
Regular applicant’s will be aware that Council’s often require elongated advertising timeframes (up to one month or more) over the Christmas period. Just recently, some Councils have significantly increased their advertising period over the 2025 Victorian Easter and ANZAC Day long weekends.
Pursuant to Schedule 1 of the P& E Act Regulations 2015, Council is provided with discretion to increase the minimum 14 day timeframe in which a decision cannot be made, after the last notice is given.
However, in more than 20yrs of assisting permit applicants our office has never had a permit issued on the 15th day. Rather, permit applicants are likely to wait 3-6 weeks, after the advertising period is complete, for a decision to be made. During this 3-6 week period Council remains obligated to receive and consider any objections – effectively elongating the advertising permit and providing significantly more than 14 days for third parties to make submissions.
An article prepared by Design Matters National (that represents a significant proportion of Victoria’s planning permit applicants) and published in the Victorian Planning and Environmental Law Association’s magazine, in April 2024, noted:
With more than $32billion dollars of development (in planning applications) on Councils’ collective-desks across the state at any one time, a reduction of just 5 gross-working-days in the processing times of planning permit applications equates to around $600Million dollars in additional planning approvals/decisions.
We appreciate there will be some larger & more impactful applications that justify longer and more stringent notification requirements – however, we think it is reasonable to question whether a notification period greater than 14 days is required for the vast majority of the more than 40,000 permit applications lodged annually, given the time lost and significant opportunity-costs of such seemingly unnecessary extensions.
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