New planning, social impact and community benefit requirements for renewable energy projects in Queensland

The Queensland Government has introduced new legislation to amend Queensland’s planning laws for renewable energy projects, making solar projects impact assessable and introducing new requirements for wind farm developers and large-scale solar farm developers to undertake social impact assessments and enter into community benefits agreements with local governments.

What is the new legislation?

The Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 (Bill) was introduced to Queensland Parliament on 1 May 2025. The Bill amends  the Planning Act 2016 (Qld) (amongst other pieces of legislation) to seek to “introduce a community benefit system into the Queensland planning framework providing the ability to identify, avoid, manage, mitigate and counterbalance the indirect and cumulative social impacts from specific development uses.”

The types of development that will require a social impact assessment may be prescribed by regulation. The Government has released a consultation draft of the relevant regulation, the Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Regulation (Draft Regulation). Under the Draft Regulation, a social impact assessment will be required for:

• A material change of use of premises for a “prescribed renewable energy facility”. This is defined as a solar energy facility which generates 1MW or more of solar energy, or which covers more than 2ha of land. This is described as “large-scale solar” in the explanatory material from the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning.
• A material change of use of premises for a wind farm.

If passed in their current form, the Bill and Draft Regulation provide that a development application for  these types of development (or a change application other than for a minor change to a development approval for these types of development) must be accompanied by:

• a social impact assessment report (SIA); and
• a community benefit agreement (CBA).

The definition of ‘properly made application’ is proposed to be amended to capture these requirements.

The chief executive of the department administering the Planning Act reserves a power to allow a development application to be lodged with an assessment manager without a SIA and/or CBA if the chief executive is satisfied it is appropriate in the circumstances, having regard to  prescribed requirements.

Social Impact Assessment

The Bill defines “social impact” as development, including the potential impact of the development on:

• the physical or mental wellbeing of members of the community; and
• the livelihood of members of the community; and
• the values of the community; and
• the provision of services to the community, including, for example, education services, emergency services or health services.

An impact may be positive or negative, direct or indirect, or a cumulative impact of the development and other uses.

A social impact assessment report is to  identify, analyse and assess the social impact of the development. The report must comply with the requirements in the statutory guidelines (the SIA Guideline).

A consultation draft of the SIA Guideline has been released. It identifies that the key matters for the social impact assessment are:

• Community and stakeholder engagement
• Workforce management
• Housing and accommodation
• Local business and industry procurement
• Health and community well-being.

Community benefits agreement

A community benefit agreement, or CBA, is an agreement about providing a benefit to a community in the locality of the relevant development. This may include providing or contributing towards infrastructure or other things for the community, or making a financial contribution to the community.

If passed, a CBA will need to be entered into with the local government where the land is located. Should  the social impact assessment report identify a social impact for a community in another local government area, an agreement would also need  to be entered into with that other local government. It may also be necessary for the CBA to include any other appropriate public sector entities.

As noted in the Community Benefit Agreement Factsheet, while not mandated, it is intended that the agreement will have some level of relationship to the social impacts identified in the social impact assessment process.

It is proposed that local governments may charge the project proponent fees for considering the social impact assessment report and negotiating a CBA with the entity, including participating in a new voluntary mediation process. The Bill outlines  amendments to the City of Brisbane Act 2010 and Local Government Act 2009 to allow for this cost recovery.

Community benefit agreements are intended to be publicly accessible, and it is proposed that local governments will be required to report on the receipt and expenditure of any funds received as part of annual financial statement reporting.

As currently drafted, the proposed amendments provide that for applications relating to development requiring social impact assessment, an application cannot be refused solely based on the omission of a CBA, or where a CBA is provided it not adequately managing, mitigating or counterbalancing the social impacts of the development. It is however contemplated that conditions could be imposed on any approval requiring compliance with a CBA and relating to social impacts.

What is proposed to happen to development applications or change applications made but not yet decided?

The transitional provisions in the Bill and the Draft Regulation would have the effect that any development application made, but not decided before the amendments commence is taken not to be a properly made application and effectively revert to the confirmation stage.

Any change application (other than for a minor change) made, but not decided before the amendments commence is taken not to have been accepted.

Development applications in the change representation period, in the appeal period, the subject of an appeal or in deemed approval or deemed refusal territory will continue unaffected by the proposed amendments as they are considered to have been ‘decided’.

Major Proposed Change: Solar as impact assessable

If passed, the Draft Regulation will amend the Planning Regulation 2017 to make any material change of use for all solar farm development  impact assessable development. This follows similar amendments earlier this year making applications for material change of use for  wind farms impact assessable development.

A consultation draft of a new State Development Assessment Provisions (SDAP) State Code 26: Solar farm development (Solar Farm Code) has been released. It contains similar elements to that identified in our alert released in April 2025 with respect to the recently revised wind farm State Code 23.

While impact assessment usually attracts third party appeal rights, the Bill proposes that only an applicant may:

• appeal against a condition of a development approval requiring compliance with a CBA, a condition of a development approval relating to social impacts or a failure to impose a condition about social impacts on a development approval;
• start a declaratory proceeding in the Planning and Environment Court with respect to a matter stated in, to be stated in or that should have been stated in a SIA for a development application or change application. For completeness, we note that the holder of the development approval and the assessment manager/responsible entity also have a right to start a declaratory proceeding in respect of these matters. Submitter appeal rights or rights of a submitter to commence a declaratory proceeding about other matters is not otherwise proposed to be confined.

Amendments to Development Assessment Rules: Public notification requirements

The package of planning reforms also includes proposed amendments to the Development Assessment Rules, including to provide for the new social impact assessment process and to set out specific public notification requirements for wind farm and large-scale solar farm development applications.

Next steps

The Bill has been referred to the State Development, Infrastructure and Works Committee. The Committee is scheduled to give its report on the Bill by 20 June 2025. Submissions may be made on the Bill or the consultation material by 12pm on 20 May 2025.