UDIA has regular stakeholder engagement meeting with all our local councils. Interested members are encouraged to contact Elizabeth York at eyork@udiansw.com.au to be included in future meetings.
Maitland City Council
UDIA met with Matt Prendergast, Andrew Neil, Cindy Littlewood and Catherine Pepper on 25 August.
- Staff recruiting: MCC has been focused on recruiting this year to bring in new skill sets. They are currently recruiting an additional 2 planners, a biodiversity officer and an engineer.
- Forward resourcing: Matt encouraged developers to let him know what level of activity they’re planning in next 12-18 months so that council can better prepare with appropriate resources.
- Customer service: Matt Prendergast is leading the development of a customer experience plan and wants to hear developers’ suggestions for the DA process, access to planners, enquiries, etc. A follow up meeting with UDIA is being planned.
- Local Housing Strategy: the LHS is the main focus of MCC strategic planning the rest of this year and they want to engage with UDIA during the process. EOIs offered during the MUSS process remain active for the LHS. Zoning (R1) is being reviewed, with the possibility of adopting R2 and R3 zones. Exhibition should be early- to mid-2021.
- Local infrastructure: MCC is developing a citywide infrastructure plan and is recruiting for a dedicated contributions planner. A follow up meeting with UDIA is being planned to discuss planning and funding for infrastructure.
- DA assessment: applications have been very high May – July, with 32-day average assessment times for standard DAs.
- Planning Portal: MCC is live and operational on the Planning Portal but still transitioning with some manual inputs and working on integration.