To improve your experience around getting quality subdivision and development approvals in WA amid an increasingly complex and overburdened planning framework, we have prepared this article to give you a few tips and pointers. These will hopefully help to save you time, money, frustration, and heartache down the track. These are some professional approaches we use, that we encourage all developers to adopt. This is particularly when you are “pushing the envelope” in planning. Which, to make the numbers stack up in today’s property development climate in WA, you certainly need to be doing to get some worthwhile return at the back end. Below is some food for thought that will help you coordinate and navigate subdivision and building approvals processes in WA in a smarter way, so you can enjoy a smoother ride, and get better development outcomes.
Pre-lodgment advice for DA
It is possible, and in fact advisable for complex design proposals or grouped dwelling arrangement proposals in the Medium density space that need to comply with part C or the Rcodes and supplemental local planning policies, to engage with local government planning officers well before final DA package lodgment. This means discussing pans earlier with them, at concept design stage, before you’ve invested lots of time in a compete DA set and gone down the wrong path. This is to get feedback on your design direction, form a design principles perspective, particularly where meeting deemed to comply provisions is difficult, or impossible. Do this with the assistance of a consulting, private industry town panner, or a development expert like us. You will get feedback from local government in this process; some things they will like, others they wont, but you will get feedback to help you make some informed decisions around which bits of your design you are going to concede and rework, and which bits of your design you are going to justify and dispute or negotiate to keep. You may even decide to go back to the drawing board entirely or pursue other approval pathways/review.
Instead of presenting a highly contentious design with lots of DTC (deemed to comply) departures at DA lodgment stage, it’s an advisable alternative to try to make friends progressively with local government planning officers as the design develops , and work together on elements that you can mutually agree will meet the design principles in the Rcodes but may not necessarily be “Deemed to Comply”. Getting people involved respectfully invites the opportunity for a collaborative approach on input from council, and this is rarely poorly received. It reduces the risk of substantial conflict and resistance that can come with a broadside approach of firing across a highly contentious application without notice, to which you have invested a lot of money and time into, and are now attached to. It’s as simple as booking in a time to see a senior planner at the council in question with your plans and navigating a feedback process. You do want an expert advocate with you however (development manager, town planner, etc), to help you be discerning of where you can overcome a difference of opinion and where you cannot.
Coordination of your DA, 1A and BP
As lot sizes get smaller and overarching panning controls get tighter and tighter , particularly in part C of SPP7.3 vol1 (the Rcodes), its strongly advisable, even if just selling vacant subdivided lots, to do some concept massing of dwellings on the sites to inform the subdivision overlay. It may fast become apparent that a functional, livable dwelling may not be achievable on one or more of the lots. A four lot subdivision may become three, you may change lot dimensions and orientation, or so forth. The last iteration of the R-codes published (that will be fully operational by April 2026) has now made this a dwelling design focused Code. Subdivision is now the servant of built form, not the other way around. The days of simply drawing squares on a piece of paper and selling them off are over!
Even (and particularly) if just doing a land subdivision on anything over and R25 coded lot, its now advisable to do some basic concept massing of dwellings on the lots that comply with Part C of the lots, to ensure that you can fit functional, fit for purpose dwellings on the lots and the future buyers wont have headaches. Fit for purpose means the types of dwellings your target end buyer segment will be able to build in a given demographic area. A low to middle income area for example, will be put off small narrow lots that force a 2-storey build, which they may not be able to afford to build.
Another part of coordination is also carefully checking your subdivision and DA once approved, to check that the conditions imposed in the approval letters can also be reflected in the final versions of each plan. For the DA, this means checking your WAPC decision letter (conditional approval for subdivision) and ensuring any notes in here about things like tree retention, and adjusting truncations or lot dimensions, are reflected in the Build Permit set you progress for council when getting build ready, or disputing /appealing this condition within the appeal timeframe if you cannot.
Vice versa, its important for your WAPC approval to check the conditions in the DA letter upon determination that any specifics in here (around change of lot boundaries, easements, requirement for restrictive covenants etc) are adequately addressed and coordinated or appealed/adjusted as appropriate.
You can lodge a DA and 1A (subdivision application) at the same time or one after the other, but be aware; even though local government officers determine the DA and are also referred to when the WAPC assesses your 1A, it is erroneous to assume that the same officer gets both applications and gives coordinated advice. This is your responsibility to check and coordinate the determinations and their conditions.
You can learn more about planning approvals processes, good design, design coordination, and planning controls like the Rcodes in our online books and courses.
To discuss building, subdivision and design coordination in Western Australia, and the best ways to develop a property, contact us and we can get in touch to discuss.
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