The measure would let compliant duplexes, townhouses and small apartment projects skip development approval entirely. The condition attached to it decides who actually benefits.
Western Australia has proposed extending the planning exemption that currently applies to single houses so that it covers developments of up to four grouped houses or apartments, meaning compliant projects of that size would need only a building permit rather than development approval.
That is the change most likely to alter how small infill work gets priced and programmed in Perth. It sits inside a wider package of planning measures the state put forward on 28 July 2026, aimed at the delays that sit between an approval and a delivered home.
The exemption that already exists, and why it matters
To understand what is being proposed, it helps to be clear on what already applies.
Under clause 61 of the deemed provisions in Schedule 2 of the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015, a new single house does not require development approval where it satisfies the deemed to comply provisions of the Residential Design Codes. Those deemed provisions form part of every local planning scheme in Western Australia and prevail over any inconsistent scheme clause. In practice, a compliant single house goes straight to a building permit.
Grouped dwellings and apartments do not get that treatment. A duplex, a set of three townhouses or a small apartment building currently requires development approval, even where the design sits comfortably inside the R-Codes.
That is the gap the proposal closes. The government describes WA as the only state with a standing planning exemption of this kind for single houses, and says extending it to other forms of housing puts the state further ahead.
What changes for small infill work
The practical effect lands on the front end of a project, not the build itself.
Development approval for a small grouped dwelling project brings assessment time, application fees, consultant input and, in many cases, advertising and neighbour consultation. It also brings discretion. A local government assessing a proposal against design principles rather than deemed to comply standards can arrive at a different view to the applicant, and there is no reliable way to price that in advance.
Removing that step for compliant projects of up to four dwellings shortens the path to site and takes a whole category of risk out of feasibility.
For builders working duplex and townhouse product in established suburbs, that changes the arithmetic. Holding costs during assessment come out. The gap between land settlement and slab down compresses. And the spread between the best case and worst case programme narrows, which matters far more than the average when you are quoting fixed price work.
The condition that decides everything
Here is the part worth reading twice.
The exemption is proposed to apply where developments meet planning standards. That is the same test the single house exemption already uses: deemed to comply.
Which means the benefit is not evenly distributed. It goes to the builders and designers who work inside the codes.
Push a boundary setback. Exceed site cover. Trim outdoor living area. Reconfigure parking to suit an awkward lot. Any one of those and the project falls back into a full development application, carrying all the time and cost that comes with it.
Under the current single house arrangements, applicants can ask their local government for a deemed to comply check before lodging. Whether an equivalent service extends to multi dwelling proposals is not yet clear, and it is exactly the kind of administrative detail that will decide how usable the exemption turns out to be in practice.
The design discipline point is not new. What is new is the size of the commercial consequence attached to it.
A statutory clock on subdivision engineering
The second measure with immediate practical weight sits further up the chain.
The state has proposed a statutory timeframe requiring local governments to respond to proponents within 28 days of receiving engineering drawings for road design and waterways during the subdivision process.
This is a delivery stage bottleneck rather than an approvals stage one. Land can be conditionally approved for subdivision and still sit while engineering documentation moves through a council queue with no deadline attached to it. Every week of that is holding cost on land that cannot yet be titled or sold.
A 28 day clock does not guarantee a yes. It guarantees a response. For anyone modelling a land project, the difference between an unbounded wait and a bounded one is the difference between an estimate and a guess.
Twelve months out of the rezoning pipeline
The package also proposes allowing more local planning scheme and region scheme amendments to progress concurrently rather than one after the other. The government estimates this could save around 12 months in approval timeframes.
Anyone who has watched land move from rezoning through to subdivision will recognise why. Running the two amendment processes in sequence builds a queue into the system by design.
Other measures flagged include streamlining structure planning and subdivision practices, improving the timeliness of subdivision condition clearances, strengthening the Western Australian Planning Commission powers to modify, progress or cancel structure plans where appropriate, and improving consistency across local planning schemes.
That last one is quietly significant. Western Australia has 137 local governments. Anyone operating across more than one council area carries the cost of that variation on every job, in documentation, in rework and in the time it takes to learn each council individually.
The structure plan powers are worth watching for a different reason. A structure plan that has been approved but never acted on ties up land the system has already counted as future supply. Clearer authority to move those on, or cancel them, is a lever pointed directly at the gap between approved land and delivered homes.
Where this sits in the wider WA reform run
This is not a standalone announcement.
It follows the proposed R-Codes overhaul released earlier this month, which the government says would make more than 50,000 existing Perth properties eligible for subdivision by removing the average lot size requirement for land coded R20 and below. It also sits alongside the Station Precincts program targeting medium and high density development around key transport nodes, and follows the state pattern book of medium density home designs.
Each of those measures does the same basic thing from a different angle: shortens the distance between a decision to build and a building permit. The pattern book of medium density designs attacked design and documentation time. The R-Codes reform attacks lot eligibility. This package attacks the approval step in between.
Read together, the pieces line up. Subdivide a 700 square metre R20 block. Build two grouped dwellings. Skip development approval on both, provided the design complies.
That is a materially different pathway for small scale infill than the one that exists today.
The context explains the urgency. The most recent Perth and Peel @ 3.5 Million health check put urban infill at 39 per cent of new housing in 2024, up from 34 per cent the year before, but still short of the 47 per cent long term target the state has been working toward since Directions 2031.
What it does not fix
Approval reform removes friction. It does not add capacity.
None of these measures put a carpenter on site, shorten a supply lead time or lower a build cost. WA has spent years competing with resources and infrastructure projects for trades, and that competition does not care what the deemed provisions say. Faster approvals into a constrained workforce produce a longer queue, not more homes.
There is also a timing point that matters for anyone tempted to price forward. Several of the administrative improvements are being prepared by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, while the legislative and regulatory amendments are still being progressed. No commencement dates have been published. This is a proposal, not a rule.
Quote the job on the current process. Watch the reform.
What to do now
Three things are worth doing while the detail settles.
Audit your standard designs against the deemed to comply provisions of the R-Codes, particularly your duplex and small grouped dwelling product. If the exemption arrives, the designs already sitting inside the codes capture the benefit immediately. The ones that rely on a variation do not.
Map your pipeline against the R20 and below stock in your operating area. The subdivision reform and the exemption reform compound each other, and understanding where they overlap on the ground is a commercial exercise more than a planning one.
And keep the current approval timeline in every quote and every contract programme until the amendments are actually in force. Nothing here changes what applies today.
Frequently asked questions
Not yet. This is a proposal. The current position is that grouped dwellings and apartments require development approval. The change would need legislative or regulatory amendment before it applies, and no commencement date has been published.
No. A development approval exemption and a building permit are two different things. Even under the existing single house exemption, a building permit is still required. The proposal changes which approvals you need, not whether you need any.
For the existing single house exemption it means satisfying the deemed to comply provisions of the Residential Design Codes. Anything that requires a discretionary assessment against design principles falls outside the exemption and back into a full development application. Heritage listed properties and heritage areas are also treated differently under the current arrangements.
It is a proposed statutory requirement for local governments to respond to proponents within 28 days of receiving engineering drawings for road design and waterways during the subdivision process. It applies at the delivery stage, after conditional subdivision approval, which is where a lot of unmeasured time currently sits.
They are separate proposals aimed at different steps in the same process. The R-Codes reform changes which blocks can be subdivided. This package changes what approvals are needed to build on them. Together they would shorten the path from an existing suburban block to a completed second dwelling, which is why the two are best read as one pipeline rather than two announcements.
The deemed provisions apply to all local planning schemes across Western Australia, so an extended exemption would apply statewide wherever the R-Codes apply. The practical demand for grouped dwelling product, however, is concentrated in the metropolitan area and the larger regional centres.
THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE
The headline here is red tape. The real story is that Western Australia is steadily moving small residential development out of a discretionary system and into a rules based one.
That rewards a specific kind of operator. The builder who designs inside the codes, keeps a tight set of standard plans and treats compliance as a commercial asset rather than an obstacle will capture this reform on day one. The builder who relies on negotiating variations will not.
None of it is law yet. But the direction has been consistent for three years now, and the gap between those two kinds of builder is only going to widen. Getting your standard designs deemed to comply is the cheapest work you can do before it does.
Last updated: July 2026
This article is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Laws, regulations, and industry requirements vary by state and territory and change over time. Builders and trades professionals should seek independent advice relevant to their specific circumstances before making business, legal, or financial decisions.
0 Comments