Guideline updates
The state significant development (SSD) and state significant infrastructure (SSI) guidelines have been updated to reflect changes introduced by the Planning System Reforms Act 2025, with a focus on more proportionate assessments.
For details about what’s changed, read the frequently asked questions (PDF, 88 KB).
More updates will be made as further parts of the reforms come into effect, and as other supporting policy changes are finalised.
Scoping report guidelines
The guidelines for preparing a scoping report have not yet been updated. The Department is currently reviewing scoping processes to ensure they are rigorous and assessment requirements are targeted to key environmental risks.
These guidelines will be updated in the coming months.
State significant development and state significant infrastructure guidelines
The Department developed comprehensive guidelines, including the state significant development and state significant infrastructure guidelines, as part of the Rapid Assessment Framework (RAF) package, to help improve the quality of environmental assessments and documentation for state significant projects.
The SSD and SSI guidelines have been updated to reflect changes to planning legislation, providing up-to-date guidance on preparing state significant project applications.
The updated guidelines are a centralised set of resources that promote a proportionate and risk-based approach to assessment.
The SSD and SSI Guidelines outline how state significant projects are assessed and set clear standards for applications and associated documents to improve the quality of environmental assessment and reporting.
The guidelines help ensure that environmental impact statements (EIS) are clear, succinct, technically robust, reflect community views, and provide a proportionate evaluation and justification of a project.
The Department has also developed a set of technical guidelines to support better assessment and engagement on state significant projects:
- The undertaking engagement guidelines require up front and ongoing engagement for all state significant projects. These guidelines help ensure engagement is meaningful, tailored to the needs of relevant stakeholders, supports a fair and transparent assessment, and aligns with the Department’s community participation objectives. More information is available at the NSW Planning Portal.
- The cumulative impact assessment guidelines provide guidance and advice to ensure cumulative impacts are effectively and consistently considered in state significant projects. This will support better assessment, well-informed and appropriate decision-making, and achieve better outcomes.
- The social impact assessment guideline standardises how social impacts are assessed and managed for state significant projects, providing greater clarity and certainty for proponents and the community. More information is available at Social Impact Assessment.
Resources
- State significant development guidelines (PDF, 2.1 MB)
- State significant development guidelines – preparing a scoping report (PDF, 421 KB)
- State significant development guidelines – preparing an environmental impact statement (PDF, 1.2 MB)
- State significant development guidelines – preparing a submissions report (PDF, 1 MB)
- State significant development guidelines – preparing an amendment report (PDF, 1.1 MB)
- State significant development guidelines – preparing a modification report (PDF, 1.1 MB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines (PDF, 2.5 MB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing a scoping report (PDF, 412 KB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing an environmental impact statement (PDF, 650 KB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing a submissions report (PDF, 506 KB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing an amendment report (PDF, 501 KB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing a preferred infrastructure report (PDF, 475 KB)
- State significant infrastructure guidelines – preparing a modification report (PDF, 520 KB)