How to object to a development application in Newcastle, and what actually counts

This covers the City of Newcastle process. Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock and Port Stephens each run their own notification rules under their own community participation plans, so treat the shape as general and the specifics as Newcastle’s.

First: not every application is notified

There is no universal right to be told. Newcastle’s guidance is that if a development may affect your property, for example privacy, sunlight, views, traffic, the council may write to you and publish the application online, and it adds plainly that Not all development applications are publicly notified, the decision to notify an application is considered on a case-by-case basis.

So the practical first step is not waiting for a letter. Applications open for comment are listed on the council’s Application Tracker, where the plans and supporting documents sit under a Documents tab, and that is where you read what is actually proposed rather than what the notification letter summarises.

What makes a submission valid

This is the part worth getting right, because these are requirements rather than suggestions. To be valid under the council’s Community Participation Plan, a submission must:

• include the application number and property address
• include your name, residential address and contact details
• be received within the notification period
• disclose any political donations or gifts
• clearly state your reasons for supporting or objecting

Note the third one. A late submission is not a weak submission, it is not a submission. The closing date is on the notification letter and on the Application Tracker entry, and posted submissions have to arrive by it rather than be sent by it.

What the council will consider, and what it will not

The guidance asks you to focus on how the proposal may affect your property, the surrounding street and the broader community, and gives the shape of a relevant concern: Relevant concerns may include bulk, scale, privacy, solar access, and other planning-related impacts.

And the limit, which is the single most useful sentence on the page: Submissions should relate to the current proposal, not past or unrelated issues. The council adds that Existing problems or historical concerns are generally not considered in the assessment.

That sentence is where most objections lose their force. A long history with a neighbour, a street that already floods, a developer’s conduct on a different site: all of it may be true and none of it is what is being assessed. An objection that spends four paragraphs on grievance and one on overshadowing has, in the assessment, made one point.

If you want to know what is permitted on the land in the first place, the council points to the NSW Planning Portal’s Spatial Viewer for the current zoning, which is worth checking before you argue that something should not be there at all.

The disclosure that carries a penalty

If you have made, or will make, a reportable political donation or gift, you have to say so. The council’s guidance sets out the window: the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 requires disclosure of donations and gifts made by you or an associate within the period commencing two years before the submission is made and ending when the application is determined.

This is not a formality. In the council’s words, Failure to disclose relevant information or to make a false disclosure statement is an offence that may be punishable by the imposition of a penalty, as per the Act. Disclosure forms that are lodged are themselves published.

Your submission is a public document

The part people are most often surprised by. Newcastle’s guidance states that any submission may be accessed under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA) and is considered Open Access Information, that it is not confidential and may be published on City of Newcastle’s Application Tracker, and that submissions may go to third parties in the assessment, including referral bodies, Council reports, or court proceedings.

On your details, the council says it removes certain personal information from public view in line with Information and Privacy Commission guidelines, and that Your name may be published, but other personal details will be withheld where appropriate.

Decide with that in mind rather than after the fact. It is also the reason you can read what your neighbours said: existing submissions appear under the Documents tab of the same application.

How to send it

Online, through the Lodge Submission button on the application’s Application Tracker entry, which allows supporting documents and photos. The council notes the submission text field caps at 5,000 characters and that a longer submission should be attached as a document instead. Otherwise, by post or in person to the Customer Service Centre at 12 Stewart Avenue, Newcastle NSW 2300, allowing delivery time before the closing date.

Objecting to a development application is one of two tracks. If what you object to is what the land is allowed to become, rather than the building proposed on it, that is a rezoning and it runs differently: see how rezoning works, and why the state sets your window to comment. And if you cannot find the application on the council’s register at all, it may not be the council’s to decide: see how to find the Hunter projects your council does not decide. And whichever track it sits on, the body that finally signs it off may not be the one you expect: see who decides a Hunter development application.

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