By Phil Herrick

The housing crisis facing the community is partly caused by the time it takes for development applications to be processed by council and a report to next Tuesday’s Eurobodalla Shire Council meeting reveals local performance is getting worse – not better.

The six-month performance update on council’s operational plan reveals the average processing time for development and section 4.55 applications (previously section 96) was an average of 62 days compared to 50 days for the same period in the previous financial year.

This is despite the number of DAs being down 8.2% compared to the same period last year.

Council received 432 development or modification applications with 379 determined, down 15.1% on the same period last year.

In explaining the worsening performance council staff blamed complexities and delays experienced with the NSW planning portal and a lack of staff.