Staff in the ACT government's planning authority had to work overtime to cut a massive backlog of development applications last year, but assessment staff are still dealing with a backlog of more than 360 applications.
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As the territory government looks to attract more mixed-use apartment developments with commercial on the ground floor across Canberra, such complex developments have hit the authority's assessment team.
Developers say while the government wants more complex developments, delays have set back applicants as much as nine months in the process, while unit titles can take up to eight weeks to finalise, when historically it had been 10 days.
Government figures show there were some 1216 development applications lodged with the planning authority in 2017-18, up from 1091 in 2016-17 and 971 in 2015-16; increasingly those proposals are getting more complex, required more consultation with the community.
Among the more complex proposals, or those needing more consultations, were Geocon's Wova and Republic developments in Woden and Belconnen, the Curtin and Giralang shops redevelopments and Air Towers in Gungahlin.
ACT Property Council executive director Adina Cirson said while some of the delays would be related to more complex mixed-use precincts, they have left many smaller proposals log-jammed in the system, pushing back delays for developers and the community.
"We're definitely seeing increased applications with greater complexity, and we'd agree there's a much greater engagement of the community during this time of urban renewal, but I think a large part of the problem is the resources available to do the assessments," she said.
Ms Cirson said there was mounting concern in the industry about the delays, given time is money in development, but the delays in issue unit titles was a key concern, as capital was already spent and such delays could lead to higher costs and potentially poorer quality and poor design outcomes.
The increased demand for assessments forced the authority last year to put assessment staff on overtime for two months, and hire an extra four staff during 2018 to deal with the backlog, which despite assessing more than 1000 applications in 2017-18, by the end of January 2019, still sat at 368 applications.
Mr Cirson said the industry had been pushing for more resources for planners to assess applications, and that given the city was undergoing its biggest-ever urban renewal project, she hoped the government would respond in the coming budget.
But she said despite the government's policy in recent years for more mixed-use proposals, it was hard to predict what the real demand would be and allocate resources to meet it.
"For the first time the [territory] government is building Canberra's first major public transport infrastructure, and I think everyone has been caught a little by surprise in the amount of activity," she said.
Ms Cirson also said the industry was waiting to see what the 'vision' was for the corridor for light rail stage two to Woden, and what specific areas would be released and the planning principles that would govern them.
"I think one problem facing those on the stage one route has been they've put forward proposals, but now the city and gateway strategy with the National Capital Authority and it's amendment 91 means they're facing new changes they weren't anticipating," she said.
"We want to make sure industry and the community knows what the vision for the next stage will be, and we need to have a conversation so industry and government can bring the community along, but that vision is yet to be set out."
