DA vs. CDC - What’s the best pathway for your new home build or home renovation?

When you are looking to build a new home or undertake a major home renovation, you are presented with two options for getting your plans approved: Development Application (DA) or Complying Development Certificate (CDC). While each option presents its own pros and cons, the two main differences between these are:

• Speed of approval, and
• Level of design plan flexibility.

Either way, a DA or CDC must be lodged and have approval granted by the respective entity before any building work can commence on your project.

Development Application

A Development Application (DA) is submitted through your local council - ether by yourself or your Architect. The specific controls for a DA may vary, depending on the local council your block resides in, and will be laid out in that council’s Development Control Plan (DCP) and Local Environmental Plan (LEP).

At the application lodgement stage, council will ensure you’ve supplied the correct documentation, request any additional required information, notify neighbours (and the community, where applicable), and engage internal or external expert referrals. You will also be allocated an assessment officer as a main point of contact for your DA.

The assessment stage will directly follow, where council will review all documentation within your application and assess each element against their DCP and LEP. There is typically a margin of leniency incorporated into council’s development controls, and any specific elements of your design that fall outside of these parameters will be assessed on merit. This level of flexibility is the key advantage of taking the DA approval pathway versus CDC.

At the determination (or decision) stage, there can be three outcomes:

• Development Consent - your plans are approved, either as is or with conditions
• DA Refusal - with reasons outlined, or
• Deferred Commencement Consent - that is, a consent not operating until one or more other important matters are resolved. This is not a common outcome.

After consent has been granted the final stage is gaining a Construction Certificate, which must be received before any building commences.

The entire DA process takes anywhere from 3 months on average. Your local council should have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) stated somewhere on their website which states how long their particular planning approval process usually takes. In general, the clearer and more detailed your initial documentation is, and the more pre-lodgement engagement you have from your neighbours, the faster the whole process will be. If council needs to “stop the clock” to request and await further information, or if changes need to be made to your plans, additional time will be added to the approval process. This is another reason why getting your Architect to do your DA lodgement and management is the best way forward.

Complying Development Certificate

The Complying Development Certificate (CDC) approval option exists so that low impact developments can bypass a local council’s approval process (which can, at times, be onerous), and hence tends to be much faster (around 2-3 weeks) than a DA in approval turnaround (which takes 3+ months).

A CDC is assessed by a private certifier (rather than your local council) and is judged against a set development standard known as a ‘Code’. The Code is a statewide planning control, so there are no differences in planning codes between different local council areas. If you hire a private certifier to issue a CDC, your local council must still be informed, although they have no say in the approval process.

The quantity of documentation for a CDC submission is not as onerous as what is required for most DA’s. Your private certifier will assess and approve your design if it complies with the Code. This means if just one aspect of your design does not meet the specified Code, your application will be rejected – there is no leniency or flexibility to this. For example, your site may be excluded from being able to do a CDC due to its:

• Zoning
• Slope gradient
• Proximity to environmentally sensitive areas
• Heritage status
• Development type, or
• Non-compliance with provisions of the State Environmental Planning policies (SEPP)

This lack of flexibility often means you need to make compromises with your design to satisfy Code requirements, as opposed to councils granting leniency in a DA for being unable to meet their development control. This may restrict the parameters through which you can achieve your design vision.

More information on Complying Development can be found on the NSW Government Department of Planning website.

So, which approval process should you choose?

Keeping an open mind at the start of your design journey is key to ensuring the best outcome for your project, as opposed to designing to a set of pre-determined rules established by your local council or the CDC guidelines. While there is obvious appeal in getting your renovation or new build approved quickly, the ultimate goal should focus on achieving your vision.

After agreeing on initial design concepts, your architect will be able to advise whether a DA or CDC is the most suitable approval avenue for your project.

This decision will depend on:

• the local council you are building in
• the design of the home you are building / renovating
• the block or land you are developing, and
• the time frame you’re looking to build in.

In general, if you have a straightforward build or renovation that can easily meet CDC guidelines, and time is of the essence, approval via CDC is quicker and slightly more cost effective.

If, on the other hand, your dream home falls outside the strict CDC guidelines, you are renovating under heritage restrictions, or if your home is in an environmentally sensitive area, submitting a DA through council may be your only option. While the DA process does take longer, it can be a relatively smooth process if you have detailed, professional documentation and are not looking to overstep the somewhat flexible guidelines of a council’s development controls.