Social Impact Assessment

A social impact assessment (SIA) refers to the evaluation of the social consequences of a proposed decision or action (such as development proposals, plans, policies, and projects) on affected groups of people and on their way of life, life chances, health, culture and capacity to sustain these. Download the Social Impact Assessment Guidelines(PDF, 507KB)

Required SIA

A detailed SIA is required for the following development applications (DAs):

Residential

Liquor and gaming

Educational

Religious facilities

Commercial

Transport

Health services

Urban development

Qualified Practitioners

A SIA should be conducted by a suitably qualified person with a social science background, training and/or extensive experience in the field of community needs analysis and community consultation.

The qualified practitioner should also be familiar with the types of information and may work in a range of fields including:

• social planning
• sociology
• human geography
• anthropology
• town planning

SIA Report Content

When you lodge a SIA, the following level of information and analysis is required:

Description

A description of the proposed development including geographic location.

Demographics

Pre-change demographics of the suburb that the development is located in.

Stakeholders

A description of the key stakeholders affected by the proposal. Consider:

• individuals and organisations
• any specific communities of interest relevant to the area/ activity (e.g. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders).

Consultation processes

An explanation of the processes used to collect and consider feedback from key stakeholders.

Proposed changes

Identify the key changes (physical and demographic) likely to occur from the proposed development/activity.

Probable impacts

An analysis of how the proposed changes are likely to impact on key stakeholders. Give consideration to the following relevant areas:

• health
• housing
• earning ability
• safety
• neighbourhood identity
• belonging and connection to community
• access to and usage of community facilities and services
• social equity (needs of disadvantaged groups/displacement etc)

Read the social assessment guidelines for more information on scoping questions.

Summary

A summary of the report findings:

• key changes as a result of the proposed development
• key probable positive impacts
• key probable negative impacts

mitigation strategies/plan to manage the probable negative impacts.

SIA author

A description of the report author, their qualifications and capacity to complete the assessment.

SIA Review

City of Parramatta staff will review the SIA report and consider the following:

• data/research validity
• whether the critical impacts have been satisfactorily identified
• whether the mitigation and monitoring measures are appropriate and support positive social outcomes for the community.

A report will be provided to Council on the planned development activity, including the social impacts.

Conditions of consent for Council’s consideration will be identified and suggested, as well as any gaps within the report.

Council will evaluate the SIA data as part of the DA consideration, which it will then decide to approve (with or without conditions of consent) or refuse.

Get in touch

If you have any questions you can get in touch with our Duty Planner on (02) 9806 5000 or via email.

You can also visit our Customer Contact Centre at 126 Church Street, Parramatta between 9am-3pm, Monday to Friday.