One Plan, One State: NSW's New Participation Framework

The NSW Government's draft single Community Participation Plan replaces over 100 separate local plans with one statewide framework: extending strategic-planning exhibitions from 45 to 60 days, standardising 7-day neighbour notification for complying development, and on public exhibition until 3 June 2026.

The NSW Government released a draft single statewide Community Participation Plan (CPP) for public exhibition on 8 April 2026. The draft replaces more than 100 different local Community Participation Plans currently in operation across the state with one consistent framework. The stated rationale is that under the existing regime, different consultation and notification approaches can apply on opposite sides of the same street.

What's actually changing

• Strategic planning exhibitions: minimum exhibition extended from 45 days to 60 days.
• Complying development: standardised 7-day neighbour notification before works begin.
• Low-impact development: councils need not exhibit single or two-storey houses, sheds and pools that already meet the planning controls.
• Local flexibility: councils retain the ability to tailor their own engagement strategies to suit local needs.

Why now

The draft CPP implements reforms that passed through Parliament in November 2025, including the establishment of the Development Coordination Authority and the streamlining of approval pathways. The framework prioritises consultation effort on strategic planning and major or complex development applications, and reduces exhibition requirements for development types that already comply with existing controls.

Practical effect

• Rezoning programmes that previously assumed a 45-day exhibition need to add 15 days to the timeline for the public-exhibition stage.
• Complying-development certifiers and homeowners need to build the 7-day neighbour notification window into the start-of-works programme.
• Councils retain discretion on local engagement strategies, but the floor is now set statewide. Local plans that are less generous than the statewide minimum will need to be re-cut.

Public exhibition

The draft CPP is on public exhibition until Wednesday 3 June 2026. Submissions are lodged through the NSW Planning Portal. The most useful submissions on a framework instrument of this kind tend to be those that point to specific operational scenarios where the proposed minimums do or don't fit, particularly at the edges of complying development and around the trigger for early-stage strategic exhibition.

The reform isn't a wholesale rewrite of the consultation regime. It's a standardisation. For most matters, that means a slightly longer strategic exhibition window and a clearer position on which low-impact developments don't need to be exhibited at all. For unusual matters (split-zoning sites, large rezonings spanning multiple LGAs), the value is in the consistency itself.