As everyone is gearing up for the annual visit from Kris Kringle, property developers should also keep in mind the timing of publicly notifying relevant applications. Under the Sustainable Planning Act 2009, the days between 20 December in any year and 5 January in the following year (inclusive) cannot count towards the 15 or 30 business day notification period.
This means that in order to avoid the "blackout period”, public notification needs to commence by 28 November 2016 at the latest. If the notification period is for 30 business days, you have already 'missed the boat' with public notification needing to have commenced by 7 November 2016. (Those applications are not very common.)
So what does this mean for lodging development applications? For code assessable applications, absolutely nothing as public notification is not required. For development applications that are impact assessable, the lodgement window is rapidly closing in on when an applicant is reasonably likely to be able to commence public notification. Lodging as soon as possible greatly improves the likelihood that Council would receive the application and decide that no further information is required prior to notification.
Our message therefore is that you need to act urgently!