Advertising and notification

Types of applications requiring notification

The Sustainable Planning Act 2009 (SPA) requires certain development applications to be advertised or publicly notified.  This notification gives interested community members an opportunity to review and provide comments on a development application. 

Details of the proposed development must be included as part of public notification to ensure that the public is aware of the existence and nature of the application. This enables interested parties to make a 'properly made' submission.

The use of the City Plan definitions alone may not be sufficient in some cases to satisfy public notification requirements.  It may also be appropriate to show the proposed scale or intensity of the proposal, for example the number of dwelling units proposed.

Public notification of an application is required if:

• any part of the application requires impact assessment.  This includes an application that requires both code assessment and impact assessment; or
• any part of an application requires notifiable code assessment as identified by City Plan 2000

Submitters for impact assessable applications may choose to appeal Brisbane City Council’s decision on the application to the Planning and Environment Court.  There are no submitter appeal rights for notifiable code applications.

Guidelines and timeframes for public notification

General

Public notification ceases after the last date for the lodgement of submissions. 

When the notification period has ended, you must, within three months, give the assessment manager written notice that the notification requirements under the SPA or Code have been met.  This notice is called the 'notice of compliance'.
 

Impact assessable applications

The following public notification requirements apply:

1. Publish a notice (at least once) in a newspaper circulating generally in the locality of the land the subject of the application.
2. Place a notice on the land the subject of the application (in the approved form as detailed in the SPA Regulation 2009) for the full notification period. The notice must be maintained from the day it is placed on the land until the end of the notification period.
3. Give notice to the owners of all land adjoining the land the subject of the application.  This includes an owner of an adjoining lot that has a common boundary with the subject site, whether such boundary is measurable or not.

The notification period is a minimum of:

• 15 business days, or
• 30 business days if :
  • there are three or more concurrence agencies, or
  • all, or part of the development, is:
    • assessable under a planning scheme and
    • prescribed under a regulation or
  • all or part of the development is the subject of an application for preliminary approval mentioned in Section 242 of SPA

Notification does not include business days between 20 December and 5 January (in the following year).

Notification can start as soon as either the:

• acknowledgement notice is given, provided there are no concurrence agencies and that the assessment manager states in the acknowledgement notice that is does not intend making an information request, or
• information request period (as described in SPA) ends and if no information request has been made during this period, or
• applicant responds to all information requests and gives copies of any responses to the assessment manager

Notifiable code applications

The following public notification requirements apply:

1. Place a sign on the land subject of the application (in the approved form as detailed in the relevant Code within City Plan 2000).  The notice must be maintained from the day it is placed on the land until the end of the notification period.
2. Give notice to the owners of all land adjoining the land the subject of the application.  This includes an owner of an adjoining lot that has a common boundary with the subject site, whether such boundary is measurable or not.

The notification period is 10 business days and timeframes start after the last notification action (as described above) has been carried out.  Notification is to start within five days after lodgement of the application with Council.