South Australia’s planning system ranks first in the nation, according to a recent report by the Business Council of Australia.

The business council’s first edition of Regulation Rumble provides a national guide to best practice in planning and regulation, ranking all states and territories.

South Australia’s planning system was highly praised for its speed and efficiency, with the report finding:

Bringing together the elements of efficiency, consistency, certainty, and transparency, the BCA finds that overall, the South Australian planning system ranks first in the nation.

In 2021 South Australia underwent the biggest modernisation of its planning system in 20 years, introducing the Planning and Design Code and Australia’s first fully digital, 24/7 planning system, PlanSA.

The Planning and Design Code is the cornerstone of the state’s planning system, replacing all 72 council development plans with one Code. This consistency in land use planning was found to represent best practice in Australia.

The system is able to adapt to future challenges and is subject to continuous improvement, greatly improving the planning landscape in South Australia.

It has also enabled the state government to take action to help alleviate the pressures of housing availability and affordability, with fast-tracked approvals for simple applications such as new houses and ‘deemed-to-satisfy’ applications such as houses in new estates taking less than 2 days.

Combined with the report rating South Australia as having the most competitive business tax, based on taxes for employing workers, charges for owning or acquiring property and the retail trading environment, the state was found to have “the most conducive environment for encouraging business growth” in the nation.