Aboriginal Land SEPP

The Aboriginal Land SEPP provides for the making of ‘development delivery plans’ (‘DDPs’) for land owned by Local Aboriginal Land Councils (‘LALCs’).

The SEPP initially established a planning pathway for Darkinjung Land Council to secure a state-led pathway

HillPDA was engaged by the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) to consider changes to Aboriginal Land SEPP, now Chapter 3 of the Planning Systems SEPP with the aim of making it easier for other land councils to access the SEPP.

To meet the DPE requirements, HillPDA undertook stakeholder engagement with several Aboriginal Land Councils to understand their organisational challenges. We also navigated the DPE engaging with a range of stakeholders to prepare an implementable reform package that balanced all stakeholder objectives.

HillPDA advised on the policy intent of the amendments to the SEPP, our planning expertise meant that we were able to advise on the potential reaction of the changes, as well as unintended consequences.

HillPDA utilised its economic expertise to prepare a statement of compliance with the Better Regulation Principles showing how the proposed SEPP amendments were in the public interest and benefits exceeded costs.

Project outcome

Our advice was adopted and resulted in all Aboriginal Land Council’s receiving the benefit from potential automatic inclusion in the SEPP.

HillPDA’s recommendations were implemented in the State Environmental Planning Policy (Planning System) Amending (Aboriginal Land Council) 2022.

The result of our work was welcomed by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.

Services:

• Policy analysis
• Stakeholder engagement
• Urban planning

Client: Department of Planning and Environment
Project year: 2022 – 2023

For more information, contact Sam Stone, Associate