The DA process.

From "I want to subdivide" to a new title in your name. Eight stages, each with its own paperwork and players.

1. Pre-DA (4–8 weeks)

Before lodging anything, you (or your planner) commission:

• A boundary identification survey to confirm the existing lot's true area, corners, and any encroachments,
• A planner's site assessment — zone, overlays, configuration options, likely conditions,
• An engineer's services check — where the water, sewer, and stormwater connections sit, and what's needed to bring services to the proposed new lot.

This is the cheapest stage to discover a fatal problem.

Optional but recommended: a pre-lodgement meeting with BCC, where a Council planner gives non-binding feedback on your proposal. Booked via Council's portal. Particularly useful for borderline cases, impact-assessable proposals, or anything with multiple overlays.

2. DA lodgement (1–2 weeks)

The town planner assembles the development application package:

• Planning report addressing each relevant code (Subdivision Code, the zone code, every overlay code that applies),
• Proposal plans (lot layout, often a concept of the future dwellings),
• Engineering concept (services, stormwater, vehicle access),
• Any specialist reports the overlays demand (flood, bushfire, ecology, heritage).

Lodgement is online via DA Online. Council fees are paid at lodgement.

BCC — Prepare and lodge an application

3. Assessment (3–12 months)

The DA timeline depends on whether it's code-assessable or impact-assessable:

BCC — Development assessment process

Information requests are the main cause of slippage. A well-prepared package gets one IR; a thin package gets two or three.

4. Decision and conditions

Council issues a Decision Notice: approved with conditions, approved subject to changes, or refused. Approval is normal for code-assessable; refusal is rare unless the proposal clearly fails a code.

A typical 2-lot subdivision approval comes with 30–60 conditions covering driveway construction, stormwater, services, fencing, contributions, and plan sealing requirements. Read each one — they shape every later cost.

Appeal window: 20 business days from the decision date for the applicant to appeal a refusal or conditions, and (for impact-assessable) for submitters to appeal an approval. The approval lapses if not actioned within its currency period (typically 4 years).

5. Operational Works (2–4 months)

For anything beyond minor work — a new driveway, services trenching, stormwater connection, retaining — you need an Operational Works (OW) approval, lodged after the DA approval. The civil engineer prepares construction drawings; Council assesses against the DA conditions.

Council decision: within 20 business days of a complete application.

BCC — Operational works application

6. Civil construction (1–4 months)

A civil contractor builds what the OW approval permits — typically:

• Driveway (concrete or paver, often a battle-axe handle),
• Water and sewer connections to the new lot,
• Stormwater connection,
• Power and NBN trenches (utilities do the live connections; you trench),
• Any retaining and finished surface levels.

Each item gets a Council inspection and a sign-off. As-constructed plans are produced for plan sealing.

7. Plan of subdivision (2–4 weeks)

The licensed surveyor pegs the new lot boundaries on site and prepares the Plan of Subdivision (also called a survey plan) showing the new lot layout, easements, and dedications. The plan goes to:

• BCC for plan sealing,
• Urban Utilities for a connection certificate,
• Titles QLD for registration.

8. Plan sealing and title registration (4–8 weeks)

You lodge the plan sealing request with BCC. Council confirms:

• All DA conditions are complete,
• All infrastructure charges (BCC and Urban Utilities) are paid,
• As-constructed plans are received and inspections passed.

Council seals the plan within 20 business days of a complete request. Once sealed, the surveyor lodges with Titles QLD for registration. New titles issue within ~2 weeks.

That's your new lot — sellable, mortgageable, buildable.

BCC — Plan sealing requests