How to find development applications near an address in NSW

What a development application is, and what never appears as one

A development application, a DA, is a formal request for approval to carry out development. The NSW Planning Portal calls this local development and says it is the most common type of development in NSW. The consent authority is usually the local council; for some development it is the Minister for Planning. Since July 2021 an applicant has needed a Planning Portal account to lodge, and the NSW Government has mandated that all councils take DAs through the portal from 1 July 2021.

A DA moves through a fixed set of stages, and a tracker shows you which one it is at. Hornsby Shire Council lists six: an initial completeness review, notification or advertisement, referral to specialists, assessment including a site inspection, determination, and the outcome sent to the applicant. The words you will see on a tracker are lodged, on notification or on exhibition, under assessment, and determined, with the determination being approved, approved with conditions, refused or withdrawn. Hornsby says its average processing time is 84 days and its target for simple alterations and additions is 60; the state's complying development page quotes an average DA determination time of 70 days.

Three kinds of building never show up in a DA search, and the first is the one that catches buyers.

• Complying development. A complying development certificate, a CDC, is a combined planning and construction approval for straightforward development that a council or an accredited certifier can issue through a fast-track assessment, in as little as 20 days, under the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008, the Codes SEPP. A new two-storey house, a large extension or a dual occupancy can go this way if it meets the numeric standards. No merit assessment, no submissions. In metropolitan areas the certifier or council must tell neighbours within 20 metres of the site 14 days before the CDC can be approved, but the state's own page says that notice is for their information only and neighbours cannot make a submission. Once issued, the builder gives at least 7 days' notice before work starts in metropolitan areas, 2 days in rural and regional areas. Neighbours may ask to see the plans; there is no obligation to show them. This is why a neighbour's build can arrive with no DA at all.
• Exempt development. Minor work such as a carport, deck or garden shed that meets set standards needs no planning or building approval and leaves no application anywhere.
• State significant development. Development with significant economic, social or environmental impacts, of the types and on the sites listed in Schedules 1 and 2 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Planning Systems) 2021, is determined by the Minister for Planning, the Independent Planning Commission or a delegate, not the council. It is exhibited for at least 28 days, or 14 days for relevant residential applications, and listed on the department's Major Projects site, not in a council tracker.

The NSW Planning Portal Application Tracker

The Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure publishes one tracker for the whole state at planningportal.nsw.gov.au/map. It lets you search and track the real-time status of development applications from lodgement to determination, filtered by project name, address, council, status, development type and lodgement date range. The same page tracks State Significant Applications, with extra filters for assessment type and industry type.

What it holds is what was lodged through the portal. The department's Online DA Data API, which feeds it, describes itself as a data feed of all DA applications lodged on the NSW Planning Portal since January 2019, with the note that councils were mandated to use the portal from 1 July 2021 and some cases may be missing before that date. So a consent from 2018 that is still being built out, or a 2020 application at a council that joined late, may not be there. The tracker page says so itself: if you are unable to find what you are looking for, view the relevant council managed application tracking tool.

Two terms on a portal record are worth knowing. Concurrence is when agreement from a referral authority must be obtained before the council can determine a DA; the portal runs an online concurrence and referral service for that step, and the Planning Secretary now has power to act in place of an approval body to prevent delays. A DA sitting at referral is waiting on a state agency, not on the council. State DA means a DA that will be determined by the Minister or the Independent Planning Commission; these are exhibited on the portal's State Development Applications list, filterable by status, local government area and application type, and all submissions on them must be made online through the portal.

Complying development certificates are not in the Application Tracker. They have their own page, the CDC application tracker, which lists CDC applications submitted via the portal by status, with the CDC number, local government area, development type, submission date and address. It is updated weekly, and it is a list to scan by suburb, not a map.

Council DA trackers and notification letters

Every council runs its own tracker on its own software, and it usually holds more history and more documents than the portal. Three examples, read on 16 September 2026.

Notification letters go to current owners and occupiers of the properties the council's engagement framework identifies, not to a buyer, so the tracker is the only route to what is already lodged. And from 1 September 2026 every council must use the statewide Community Participation Plan, which standardises exhibition periods and removes exhibition for certain lower-impact development while keeping a minimum 14-day exhibition for residential flat buildings and shop top housing. Hornsby's tracker page puts it plainly: many development applications previously notified to neighbours will no longer be open for a public submission. They will still appear in the tracker; they just will not arrive in a letterbox.

How to search around an address, and what to read once you find one

Every tracker searches by the address on the application. The one you are buying will almost never be on an application; the ones next to it might be. So search the street, not the house.

1. The street. Where the tracker allows it (Hornsby does), search by street name and suburb and read every result. Where it needs a full address (Parramatta, Inner West), search the numbers on both sides and across the road.
2. The neighbouring lots. Search the address either side. A dual occupancy or a two-storey rebuild next door is the most common surprise, and it is the one most likely to have gone through as a CDC, so check the portal's CDC list for the suburb too.
3. The block behind. Find the street that backs onto the rear boundary and search its numbers. Rear-lane and battle-axe lots are where the shadow and overlooking come from.
4. The corner and the main road. Larger sites at the end of the street and on the arterial road are where residential flat buildings and shop top housing go. Check the council tracker, the portal's State Development Applications list, and the planning proposals register below.

Once you have an application open, read it in this order. The notice or description gives the type of development in the applicant's words, the lot, and the date it was lodged; note whether it is on notification and the closing date. The plans are the evidence: the site plan shows the footprint and the setbacks from each boundary, the elevations show the height and the windows that face you, and the shadow diagrams, where included, show whose yard loses sun in midwinter. The height and the setbacks are the two numbers to compare with the controls for the zone, which the zoning guide shows you how to read. A notice of determination means the decision has been made; the conditions attached to it are the only version of the building that is allowed to be built, and amended plans lodged during assessment replace the originals.

Rezonings and planning proposals are a separate record

A DA asks to build something under the rules that exist now. A planning proposal asks to change the rules. It is the formal document used to make or amend a local environmental plan, and its explanation of provisions states what changes to zoning, land use or standards are proposed. It goes through a gateway determination by the NSW Government, public exhibition, and finalisation. None of it appears in a DA tracker.

The Planning Portal keeps a register at planningportal.nsw.gov.au/ppr with a search bar and seven statuses: Under Assessment, Pre-Exhibition, On Exhibition, Post-Exhibition, Finalisation, Made and Withdrawn, plus a Rezoning Review section for selected council areas. "On Exhibition" is the stage at which it is open for public comment. A made proposal that lifts the height limit on the block behind is not a building, but it is the reason one will be applied for.

The steps, in order

1. Open the Planning Portal Application Tracker. Search the address, then clear it and search by council with the map zoomed to the street. Note every application within sight of the house and its status.
2. Open the council's own tracker (three are linked above; every council has one). Search the street name where you can, otherwise the numbers either side, across the road and on the street behind. Open anything lodged or determined in the last few years and read the notice and the plans.
3. Check the council's "on notification" or "on exhibition" list. Anything there is open for a submission, which you can make even though you are not yet the owner.
4. Scan the portal's CDC application tracker for the suburb. This is the only public list of builds that never became a DA.
5. Filter the State Development Applications list to the local government area.
6. Search the planning proposals register for the council and suburb, and read anything on exhibition or made.
7. Take the height and setback of anything that worries you to the zoning controls, and take the lot to the section 10.7 certificate in the contract, which states the planning rules for the property itself but says nothing about applications on neighbouring lots.

Questions about development applications near an address