Western Sydney Planning Partnership
Western Sydney is the centre of Sydney’s next wave of growth, with the region’s population expected to exceed 2 million within 15 years.
To help prepare for this growth, the Western Sydney Planning Partnership (WSPP) secured Commonwealth Housing Support Program funding to improve and accelerate infrastructure planning across the Western Parkland City councils: Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Liverpool, Penrith and Wollondilly.
SGS was engaged to identify and develop a digital contributions planning support tool to assist councils with local infrastructure contributions planning for both infill and greenfield development.
Early engagement with councils was central to the project. SGS facilitated a discovery workshop with WSPP and member councils to better understand the challenges councils face in preparing, implementing and reviewing contributions plans, and to identify opportunities for digital support tools.
The process identified nine potential tools for further exploration, with a contributions rate calculator selected as the pilot solution.
Local Infrastructure Contributions (LICs) help fund essential infrastructure, such as parks, roads, and community facilities, when new development occurs. However, calculating contributions is often complex, time-consuming and difficult to interpret across different users and systems.
SGS developed both an internal Excel-based calculator for council officers and an external online calculator for industry and community users. The tool provides clear, transparent and consistent information on applicable contribution rates, helping councils, certifiers and developers quickly understand costs and test development scenarios using the same data source.
