A Complying Development Certificate is a combined planning and building approval, determined by a registered private certifier without a development application to council. It is available where the proposal meets every standard in the State policy for complying development, and where the land is not excluded.
A development application is an application to council, assessed on merit. It is the pathway where complying development is not available — because a standard is not met, or because something about the site rules it out.
The first is measured against a checklist. The second is weighed as an opinion. That is the whole difference, and it is why one is faster.
Three things, in this order. First, the land: a heritage item or a heritage conservation area, certain environmentally sensitive land, some foreshore land and land affected by particular flood or bushfire constraints can each exclude complying development regardless of what is proposed.
Second, the title: a covenant, an easement in the wrong place, or a restriction recorded in the 88B instrument can stop the pathway on a site that meets every planning standard.
Third, the design: lot size and shape, setbacks, height, floor area, landscaped area, private open space, parking and drainage all have to be satisfied — every one of them, not most.
Miss one and the project cannot be approved as complying development at any price. There is no discretion to grant, which cuts both ways: nobody can refuse you on taste either.
The expensive moment in a residential project is almost never the assessment. It is the redesign, three weeks after the drawings were finished, because something nobody checked ruled out the pathway everyone assumed was available.
A title search, a section 10.7 planning certificate and the 88B instrument cost very little and take a day or two to obtain. Against the cost of a full set of drawings, it is not a close call.
Send us the property address and the title documents, at whatever stage the design has reached — a sketch is enough, and so is nothing at all.
We will tell you whether the fast pathway looks open, what on the site would close it, and what the project needs either way. If it has to be a development application, you will know that before you spend money on the assumption that it does not.
Send us the property address and whatever plans exist and we will tell you where you stand — the pathway, what is still needed, and what it will cost. Or call (02) 8772 4022 and we will talk it through.
Request a fee proposal