Notifying Owners and Occupiers

How we notify owners and occupants

We notify property owners and occupants by sending written letters through Australia Post. For Designated Developments, we also place a sign on the development site for the entire exhibition period.

I have received a notification letter

If you have received a notification letter, you have the following options:

• View the Development Applications on Exhibition page to find the application that your letter relates to; or
• View the Make a Submission page to have your say on the development.

How we identify affected properties

The number of properties we notify will vary depending on the type of development and the circumstances of the site.

Under the Community Participation Plan, we use the following three criteria to determine which nearby properties may be affected and should be notified:

1. Where required under Table 1 on our Requirements for Notification and Exhibition page, and subject to criteria 2 below, all adjoining properties will be included as potentially affected properties and notified.
2. Where an ‘adjoining property’ is located greater than 1km from any part of the proposed development, the property owner and occupant will not be notified if it is determined that the property will not be affected by the development proposal having regard to the matters outline in Criteria 3 below.
3. Consideration will be given to the following matters when identifying other potentially affected properties to be notified that are not adjoining:
   1. overshadowing
   2. privacy
   3. noise or any other kinds of emissions
   4. existing and proposed ground levels
   5. stormwater drainage
   6. intensity of development (e.g. increases in operating hours, production levels and traffic volumes)
   7. heritage significance of any building work, tree or place
   8. visual quality and consistency of the works in relation to the streetscape and character of the locality
   9. scale or bulk of the proposal, in relation to adjoining buildings in the immediate locality
   10. siting of the proposal in regards to site boundaries
   11. light spillage or reflection, created by the development.
   12. means of access, and transportation both to and from the site
   13. The location of the development site and the nature of surrounding land uses including their susceptibility to the impacts outlined above
   14. any other matter that we deem relevant having regard to the nature of the development, the site and the locality

How we identify property owners and occupiers

The owner of the property is the person identified through our property and rating system at the time of notification. The notice will be sent to the address on our system for this owner.

Where the postal address of the owner differs to the address of the property being notified, a single generic letter addressed to “the occupier” will also be posted to the property address.

The process of identifying and notifying owners will be adjusted in the following circumstances:

• Multiple owners – If a property is owned by more than one person, a written notice to one owner is taken to be a written notice to all owners of that land.
• Multiple affected properties under common ownership – In this circumstance, a single letter will be sent to the common landowner. Individual notification letters for each property will not be issued.
• Potentially affected property owner is also the applicant – A written notice will not be sent to an owner of an adjoining or any other property if that owner is the person, or one of the persons, who made the development application.
• Strata title properties – A written notice to the owners corporation (as defined by the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015), is taken to be a written notice to the owner of each lot within the strata scheme.
• Community title properties – A written notice to the association (as defined by the Community Land Development Act 1989) is taken to be a written notice to the owner of each lot within that community.
• Other multi tenanted properties - A written notice to the property owner is taken to be a written notice to the occupants of each tenancy within the property.