Getting your project through council - 7 strategies for development approval
Knowledge and experience of planning law, council machinations and the approval process is a fundamental of development approval success. Here are 7 ways to help your application succeed:
1.Quality of documentation
There is no doubt that making information clear and concise, making drawings look great, emphasising great heritage, community outcomes, development mitigation and demonstrating compliance is the key. But also making the plans and documents easy to navigate and understand doesn’t hurt your cause. Making the job of the assessment team easier makes them feel better about your application and ultimately there is an element of subjectivity in every assessment. If you’ve made their life easier the council planner will be appreciative of this.
2. Knowing what will be contentious and pre-empting
So we’ve already talked generally about development mitigation above but you can address specific concerns preemptively by documenting where you have actively worked to minimise any impacts, be they privacy, impact on streetscape or anything else. Showing that you understand the impact and have made an effort goes a long way.
3.Being firm but respectful in your dealings with council
It’s important to be balanced in your dealings with council staff. We need to be firm to prosecute a case on behalf of your client and swiftly call out mistakes and poor customer service outcomes or lack of due process but this needs to be tempered with empathy and respect. Council planning departments tend to be stretched and under-resourced and they’re consistently dealing with complex problems that have diverse stakeholders and moving parts - a little bit of empathy goes a long way towards a positive discussion.
4.Being constructive and workshopping ideas with assessment team
Council planners and staff are ready to take an adversarial approach to dealing with submissions because that is what they are expecting from applicants that are disappointed, annoyed and frustrated with the the outcome and the process. What helps a lot is taking a proactive, problem solving approach into any dealings or meetings. Finding a way to solve their problem - which comes down to understanding - while creating a good outcome for your client is the go-to.
5.Being Authentic
Council planners have seen it all before. Being tricky and providing misleading information makes you an unreliable applicant. Exaggerating calculations or understanding impacts visually will not pass muster. The assessment team will see through this and then expect that other things within the submission are not reliable and will scrutinise everything, whether it requires scrutiny or not.
6.Strategising to keep some aces up your sleeve
So this is a bit nuanced and I realise this may sound like we’re contradicting the point above about being authentic. I don’t advocate being tricky and deliberately misleading or concealing information that should have been presented but you are well within your rights to add or remove anything you want to or from the application. Some things may be better left out and offered later. A typical example would be an improvement to the heritage value of the property that you are not obliged to execute. Like it or not there is typically some horse trading that happens at the business end, what’s required is a bit of compromise on both sides so keeping something up your sleeve that you can offer at this juncture makes sense.
7.A high quality team
Having a highly regarded extended team will make your application shine. For example having a report from a credible and highly regarded heritage consultant supporting your application will add credibility and make the package as a whole that much better. There is little doubt that planning is a team sport on every level.
Ready to take the next step towards project approval success? Explore our design consultation services at Ballast Point. Our expert team is here to provide tailored guidance and support to help you navigate the approval process with confidence. Contact us now.
