How To Write A Public Submission Responding to Development Applications

A development application(commonly referred to as DA) is a formal application to council or the Department of Planning and Environment, by a person/owner/builder wishing to build or alter a building and or land and its usage. A submission in general is a method of submitting your response to a proposal.

There may come a point in your life when you feel worked up about a development application that will impact how you live your life that you want to and should write a submission so that your views are formally considered. You can make a submission alone or as a joint submission with others who share your views.

If your submission is lengthy, utilise a table of content or headings and paragraphs or bullet points. 

Here are some ideas that you can cover when you are composing your submission in response to the DA. By the way, council and the Department of Planning and Environment aren't really interested at all on how the DA will positively or negatively affect your property prices. They are more interested in issues that you can cover below:

* Traffic and car parking impacts, call for a road safety audit if the proposed development is near an intersection or roundabout

* Inappropriate height of proposed development possibly setting precedence, the height could be visually bulky and out of context with neighbouring development, it could dominate the skyline

* Adverse increase in density affecting quality of life

* Unjustified reductions in community centre sizes or open public spaces

* Adverse impact on social infrastructures/services such as park, public transport, bus facilities and local roads

* Lack of open spaces/green spaces which are beneficial to people's long term mental health and happiness

* Noise and nuisance during construction

* Adverse environmental impacts on such things as trees, landscape, ground water, contamination

* Overshadowing and overlooking

* Inadequate public transport

* Obscuring private views

* Increase in crime

* Failing to accord with Council's strategy for the area

* Non compliance with Council's Development Control Plan (DCP) for the area/suburb

* Local schools are at capacity or over capacity and overcrowded being unable to cope with increased density and population

* Refer to data, any legislation or laws that are applicable, refer to any relevant policies