New planning reforms signal stronger focus on heat resilience

The proposed Climate Change and Natural Hazards State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) and accompanying urban heat policy represent a significant step toward embedding heat resilience in the NSW planning system.

Developed by the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, the reforms place a clear emphasis on addressing the growing risks associated with extreme and urban heat. As temperatures continue to rise, integrating heat considerations into planning decisions is increasingly critical to protecting community health, liveability and infrastructure performance.

The policy direction progresses Recommendation 13 of the Greater Sydney Heat Smart City Plan, which highlights the need to better integrate heat resilience into planning systems and decision-making. Doing so will support more consistent and proactive responses across the state, from how land is zoned and developed, to how urban form, greening and built environments are designed.

WSROC and other local government representative groups wrote in support of the intent to bring climate and natural hazard considerations into a single, clearer framework, and made several recommendations to enable the proposed changes to meet their stated intent. Amongst other recommendations, we emphasized that the next critical step to meaningfully reduce heat risk to our communities is to translate the draft Urban Heat Policy into minimum, enforceable statewide performance outcomes, while enabling councils to apply stronger local controls in hotspot LGAs.

The Climate Change and Natural Hazards SEPP is intended to be finalised by the end of the calendar year.

For more information, see:

Climate Change and Natural Hazards SEPP: https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/draftplans/under-consideration/climate-change-and-natural-hazards-sepp

WSROC Submission: https://wsroc.com.au/media-a-resources/submissions?task=download.send&id=415&catid=2&m=0