Planning applications that move quickly share one characteristic: they are complete on first submission. Applications that come back with comments, or are held pending additional information, add weeks to the programme — and on a project with a defined construction start date, that slippage compounds.
Three mistakes account for the majority of delays we see.
The Department of Planning measures setbacks from the road reserve boundary — not from the kerb or the visible road edge. The road reserve is a designated corridor that is typically 30 feet wide, but varies by road. A site plan that measures setbacks from the wrong baseline will fail this check at review stage, requiring a revised drawing and a new submission cycle.
Before any site plan is finalised, confirm the road reserve width for that specific road against NRA records. Do not assume 30 feet — some roads carry wider reserves, and an incorrect assumption here can add four to eight weeks to a straightforward residential programme.
For applications that require neighbour notification, the notification must be served before the application is submitted — not concurrently, and not after. The certification of notification, with evidence that the 21-day objection window has run, must be included in the submission package.
Applications that arrive at the CPA without this certification are held. The notification radius depends on the project type and scale — for multi-family developments it can extend to 450 feet. Identifying affected properties, serving notification properly, and allowing the objection period to run is a process that should begin at least four weeks before the intended submission date.
The CPA regularly requests additional information on landscape plans that list species without showing coverage, omit boundary treatment, or fail to address waterfront or road frontage requirements. A compliant landscape plan specifies species by name, shows planting locations against the site plan, indicates coverage percentage, and addresses all boundary conditions.
For coastal sites, any DOE requirements regarding native species or protected vegetation must also be resolved before submission. Getting the landscape plan right at the first attempt is significantly faster than revising it under a CPA comment. A landscape architect engaged early in the design process produces a compliant plan — not a plan that satisfies design intent but fails on planning detail.
We handle every planning application from pre-submission checks through CPA approval — so your project starts on programme, not weeks behind it.
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