Lodging A Development Application In December

December 25th is a day to celebrate and be with family. However, it also seems to be a deadline set by many people to get their Development Application lodged with Council. There are many personal reasons for the homeowner to want to achieve this so that they can relax and get together Christmas holiday knowing that one big job has been ticked off their list.

However, there are also a couple of negatives to this timeline.

The first issue is that a lot of other people have the same deadline and this means that the various consultants required to prepare your application will be very busy through November and December. This can make the process of documenting your application more stressful and difficult.

Secondly, as many people are away over the holiday period, Councils require an extended notification period of around 28 days (instead of 14) in December and January.

Finally, the Council becomes a bit of a ghost town over late December and January with many staff having time off and Council meetings not scheduled. Only the minimum happens within Council and it is most likely that your application lodged in late December will not really be looked at until the end of January.

Having seen this as a pattern over the last 20+ years, it seems that taking your time lodging the application in late January/ February would likely have the same result as trying to meet the 25th December deadline. Take your time and don’t stress about lodging by the end of the year as you are losing very little time in the overall process.

Written by Sarah McNeilly, Watermark Planning