Rezoning & LEP amendments

LEP Amendments

An LEP amendment is required when any change to land use occurs, be that text provisions and/or mapping. An LEP amendment is a statutory process which needs to be supported by professional technical studies, involves assessment by Council, Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, government agencies and undergoes public exhibition.

The process is costly and lengthy which can take a minimum of 18+ months for a basic proposal to be completed.

Preparing for an LEP amendment

When preparing your proposal, there’s a few things you should consider.

When preparing information for an LEP Amendment proposal you will need to review and be consistent with the following planning policies:
Hunter Regional Plan 2041
Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Plan 2036
Maitland Local Strategic Planning Statement
Maitland Housing Strategy
Maitland Rural Lands Strategy
Identified land within Council’s Urban Development Program (upon request to Council)
Discussing your proposal with our Strategic Planning Department will help to identify if the proposal demonstrates one or more of the following:
an error or anomaly in the LEP
the land cannot reasonably be developed or used for a permitted use under the existing zone
the rezoning would provide considerable community benefit
the land is consistent, or is land identified for development within State and local planning policies
the land is identified as an investigation area within Council’s Urban Development Program
The land under ownership of multiple landholders, and/or would create over 2,000 dwellings and requires the preparation of a Place Strategy
Whether the proposal needs any specialist professional studies to support the LEP amendment

Call to discuss proposal
A pre-lodgement application must include a scoping proposal. Information required in a scoping proposal will vary depending on the site and the extent of the changes proposed. Information on preparing a scoping proposal can be found in the Local Environmental Plan Making Guide.
The scoping proposal template should be used to prepare your application. Once you have all the required documentation, you can lodge your request for rezoning pre-lodgement advice.
It is strongly recommended that you engage a qualified town planning consultant & Council’s Strategic Planning Department to prepare the rezoning pre-lodgement application, as the process requires technical knowledge.

View the Local Environment Plan Making Guide

Lodge your application

Lodge your application via email to Council.

Once you have all the required documentation, you can lodge your pre-lodgement scoping proposal application to Council via email addressed to the Coordinator City Planning - Strategic Planning Department.
You will receive a reference number once your application is submitted.
Once you've lodged your application, Council will determine the fees charged in line with our Fees and Charges and the complexity of the LEP amendment, and you will receive an email asking for payment.
Once fees are paid, your application will be formally lodged and will progress through for assessment.

Scoping Proposal Assessment

Once your scoping proposal is submitted the following process will occur:

The scoping proposal will be referred to Council staff and State agencies to provide feedback.
A pre-lodgement meeting will be scheduled to run through your documentation, preliminary advice and any requirements for additional information or studies.
Pre-lodgement meeting minutes and formal pre-lodgement advice will be provided.

Planning Proposal

The planning proposal must address all requirements of the LEP Making Guide and as set out by Council, with the planning proposal to be lodged via the NSW Planning Portal.

Once the planning proposal has been lodged in the NSW Planning Portal, you will be provided a reference number. If supported by Council, it’s submitted to the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure who assess and issue a Gateway Determination. If the proposal adheres to conditions within the Gateway Determination, it is then referred to State agencies.

The planning proposal is then placed on public exhibition and adopted to finalise the LEP amendment. The proposal is then finalised by the Parliamentary Secretary and/or Department of Planning and Environment and the Maitland Local Environmental Plan 2011 is amended, with the published amendment taking legal effect.

Please note: at any phase of this process, the amendment can be refused if it does not meet assessment criteria.

Once you've lodged your application, Council will determine the fees charged in line with our Fees and Charges and the complexity of the LEP amendment, and you will receive an email asking for payment.
Once fees are paid, your application will be formally lodged and will progress through for assessment.

Appealing a decision

An applicant can appeal a decision at the following stages:

Planning Proposal decision: An independent planning panel evaluates a Planning Proposal and recommends whether it should proceed to Gateway Determination
Gateway Determination decision: The Department of Planning and Environment reviews the Gateway determination.

Further information can be found within the Local Environmental Plan Making Guideline.

Application timeframes

The LEP amendment process is set with the below minimum timeframes for each scale of proposal. Note that these timeframes do not include the time for preparing or amending relevant studies and are dependant on the categorisation and complexity of the proposal.

At the planning proposal stage, your proposal can also be tracked via the NSW Planning Portal.

Stage	Benchmark timeframes
Pre-lodgement	30 - 60 days
Planning proposal	40 - 120 days
Gateway determination	25 - 45 days
Post-gateway	20 - 160 days
Public exhibition & assessment	70 - 115 days
Finalisation	25 - 80 days
Sub-total	140 - 380 working days

Local Environment Plan