The creation of the consistent engineering standards will cover all civil infrastructure for residential developments such as roads, kerbs, footpaths and stormwater drains.

The state-first initiative is expected to reduce costs and shave months off new housing development timeframes while maintaining high-quality, consistent infrastructure standards.

A tender is now open to develop the new, consistent engineering standards. If approved, the new standards will be utilised in greenfield land divisions in growth areas across South Australia.

Currently, standards for community infrastructure such as local roads, stormwater management and drainage, street lighting, gutters and footpaths vary across each metropolitan council.

By complying with statewide standards, housing projects that use the new engineering standards will benefit from faster development assessments and greater certainty when estimating infrastructure costs.

The new engineering standards will also support climate-resilient infrastructure and water sensitive urban design measures to ensure that we are designing healthy communities of the future.

The creation of a single set of engineering standards for greenfield residential developments is a commitment of the South Australian Government’s Housing Roadmap.

The government has already introduced a series of initiatives from the Roadmap to improve the supply of new homes:

• Introduced a Builders Panel for Renewal SA projects to streamline new builds
• Created a new Housing Affordability role within the Department of Housing and Urban Development to promote policy that encourages the viability of affordable housing projects.
• Committed to maintaining new NCC construction standards for 10 years
• Opened consultation on the Future Living Code Amendment to increase diversity of housing options

The tender is now available on the Tenders SA website and submissions are open until 9 September 2024. Once drafted, the new engineering standards will be released for public and industry consultation.