Mayor Ned Mannoun said the public launch is a first for local government in NSW and shows the progressive direction Liverpool is headed.

“Lengthy processing times for development applications will now be a thing of the past for Liverpool residents,” he said.

“After the success of Council’s developer-only FastTrack launch last July, we are now going live with this innovative program which paves the way for applications to be assessed faster and means homes will be built quicker.”

The transformation to digital DA processing will eventually see paper applications phased out.

During the pilot phase of FastTrack between January and June last year, Council assessed 60 low-risk development applications and found the program slashed wait times by 97 per cent.

The program was launched to industry in July. Since then a further 68 development applications have been assessed with waiting times cut from an average of 104 days to just five.

Cr Mannoun credited the consistently quick turn-around times to the program’s intuitive platform.

“FastTrack guides customers through the lodgement process, which allows Council to start the assessment sooner,” he said.

“Anyone can lodge an application, however, due to the short turnaround times, Council requests high-quality applications be submitted which contain all the necessary information.”

We also strongly advise residents to seek qualified planning and/or building professionals with a strong understanding of the development process.

“This means Council’s planning staff will spend less time chasing up applications and more time on complex large-scale proposals.”

He said mum-and-dad developers will now be able to benefit from the tool which will reduce red tape and increase certainty for new release areas. An expansion of the program is also not far away.

“This month Council will expand FastTrack to include all houses; and minor additions such as carports and patios will be added the following month.”

“Retail premises seeking to make minor change of uses can also be able to apply through the system.”

Cr Mannoun said FastTrack will help support Council’s long-term growth strategy for the area.

“We are one of the fastest growing cities in the state and the home of Sydney’s second international airport, Liverpool is set to accommodate more than 320,000 people by 2036.”