Cumberland Local Planning Panel (CLPP)

Public Meetings available via Zoom

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the public meetings of the Cumberland Local Planning Panel will be held via Zoom platform. Please find below link and details on of the meeting for 14 October 2020 should you wish to participate.

Cumberland Local Planning Panel

Council has established an independent hearing and assessment panel with a delegation to make final and independent determinations on development applications and recommendations for Planning Proposals to Council that are referred to it.

The membership of consists of four members, two drawn from a pool of experts in the respective fields of environmental and planning, a rotating community member, and a permanent chair with a legal background.

The Honorable Paul Stein, QC, AM, is the permanent chair of the Cumberland City Council Independent Hearing and Assessment Panel. Hon Paul Stein is a respected jurist, who is a former judge of the District Court of NSW, NSW Land and Environment Court and the NSW Court of Appeal. He was an acting judge of the NSW Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and a judge of the Court of Appeal of Fiji. He was also a former NSW Deputy Ombudsman and President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, Chair of the Australian Consumers Association and Chair of the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

The Hon Paul Stein is currently the Chair of the Board of Governors of the NSW Law and Justice Foundation and the current chair of Manly, Mosman, Waverley Council’s Independent Assessment Panels.

The Cumberland Local Planning Panel will typically meet on the second Wednesday of each month at 11.30am at least 10 times each year. The specific dates and times are provided on the website.

The Panel will publish its reasons and conclusions for decisions and a record of voting and is subject to Council approved Cumberland Local Planning Panel Policy and Procedures.

Changes to Local Planning Panels

The NSW Government has made changes to the way Local and Regional Planning Panels work to make them more efficient and to improve the assessment and determination times of development applications. These changes are being made as part of the Planning Acceleration Program to support the state’s immediate and long-term economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

The changes, which commenced on 1 August 2020, will speed up panel determinations by:

• reducing the need to conduct public panel meetings for non-contentious matters by applying a ‘10-or-more’ objection trigger for public meetings
• reducing the amount of modifications going to panels
• obliging panel chairs to more actively manage development applications (DAs) coming to the panels to reduce panel deferrals and assessment timeframes
• allowing chairs to bring forward determination on DAs that are experiencing unreasonable delays of over 180 days from lodgement
• introducing panel performance measures.

For more information please visit https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/planning-panels/upcoming-changes-planning-panels

Frequently asked questions

• Cumberland Local Planning Panel FAQs

Relevant documents

• Registration to address the Panel (PDF, 47KB)
• Registration to address the Panel (DOCX, 27KB)
• Local Planning Panels Direction – Planning Proposals
• Local Planning Panels Direction – Development Applications
• Local Planning Panels Direction – Operational Procedures
• Code of Conduct 
• IHAP Overview 
• IHAPS best practice meeting procedures