How to use Districts' nearby development pipeline

The development activity methodology is the rule book. The adapters in use when this page was checked are Sunshine Coast Council and the NSW Department of Planning statewide tracking feed. Other listed councils, including several south-east Queensland councils, have no nearby buffer and return unavailable rather than zero.

• Source: the council tracker or state portal through an adapter. Coverage is on the coverage page.
• Query: applications whose location falls inside the 800 metre display radius of the official parcel.
• Grouping: applications that share a lot/plan, a normalised address, nearby addresses within about 15 metres, or related application numbers within about 40 metres. The grouping is a Districts-derived rule, not an official classification.
• Status: the register’s own field. Terms differ by state and territory.
• Distance: straight-line metres from the parcel to the project location.
• History: decided and historical applications can appear. Districts does not limit the list to this week’s lodgements.

Read description, status and distance together. A large approved project 150 metres away and a lodged single-dwelling application 700 metres away are different facts. Open the source record for plans and conditions. On the Sunshine Coast, this-lot applications can be drawn from a wider set of council layers than the nearby search, so a building or plumbing record can appear on the lot and still be absent from the neighbourhood list.

Labelled illustration: a page lists a 24-unit building approved 180 metres away, a childcare centre lodged 420 metres away, and a dual occupancy refused 700 metres away. The first is approved, not necessarily under construction. The second may change. The third is a decision. Approval is not construction. See approvals versus completions.

A completed spatial check that finds zero applications is reported as no nearby applications within the radius. That is a queried result for that feed. If no official nearby adapter exists, the pipeline is unavailable, not zero. Never read unavailable as “nothing is planned”. The rental supply pressure check uses the same nearby pipeline as an input when that pipeline is loaded. If the pipeline is unavailable, supply pressure cannot honestly count nearby projects. The slot stays unknown rather than assuming zero projects.

These mistakes treat 800 metres as a planning law, or unavailable as empty.

• Reading unavailable as nothing planned.
• Counting applications instead of grouped projects.
• Treating approved as built.
• Ignoring the extract date.
• Reading straight-line distance as impact. Roads, rail and slope are not in the metre count.

It does not establish that a nearby application will be built, or that the subject lot has an application. Location in some registers is approximate. Grouping can merge adjoining lots or split one project. State-assessed or major projects may sit outside a council tracker. The extract has a date; later lodgements will not appear until the register is read again.

Follow the link to the source record. Check the council register for anything lodged after the extract date. For a project that would change your decision, ask council planning staff for status and any commencement. See nearby DAs. If the page shows unavailable, that check is your first verification item, not a reason to assume a quiet street. Historical rows in a loaded feed can look like a current pipeline. Read the status and the decision date before you count a refused dual occupancy as tomorrow’s supply.