20 March 2026 release summary

Planning System Reforms

Development application service

Changes to modification applications made under section 4.55(1) of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act), and the review of a determination of a development or modification application, were introduced as part of this release to support the Planning System Reforms. These changes will apply to applications submitted on and after 21 March 2026: 

• When an applicant indicates they are applying for a modification application, the wording of the options for question ‘What type of modification application is requested?’ on the ‘Application details’ screen changed to ‘Modification involving minor error, misdescription, or miscalculation or modifications with no environmental impact – Section 4.55(1)’.
• New help text under the ‘Modification type’ heading: ‘Modifications of existing applications are allowed under sections 4.55 or 4.56 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. If the proposal changes too much, a new development application must be submitted.’
• The system generated ‘Pre-DA form’ has been updated to show the new modification type.
• Introduction of warning message on the ‘Preliminary assessment’, ‘Final assessment’ and ‘Capture determination’ screens to notifying council users that a section 4.55(1) modification application must be determined within 14 days.  The warning banner is as follows: ‘A minor modification application must be determined within 14 days. You must determine this application by [dd/mm/yyyy]. After this date, the modification application cannot be refused. If the last day of the 14-day period falls on a Saturday, Sunday, public holiday or bank holiday, the determination date is automatically extended to the next business day. This timeframe does not apply to an application which seeks to modify a housing and productivity contribution condition, unless the proposed modification has been approved by the Minister’.
• Validation added to the ‘Provide NSW Planning Portal application number (PAN)’ field on the ‘Application details’ screen for ‘Review of determination’ application types if an applicant enters a development application reference number that was determined over 6 months prior to the current date. The error message reads: ‘This application was determined over six months ago and a request to review the determination is not available. Select the 'modification' application type if you want to request a modification to your development application, or select 'development application' to start a new application.’
• Introduction of optional question ‘Who would you prefer to review your application?’ on ‘Application details’ screen when an applicant selects ‘Review of determination’ development type, and the original determination was made by council staff under delegation.
• Introduction of warning message on the ‘Review and submit’ screen for a review of determination application that was started on 21 March but not submitted until after that date. The message reads: ‘Application was submitted more than 6 months ago so you can’t submit a review. You will need to change the application type to “Development application” and submit a new application to proceed’. 

Major projects

The following change was made to the Major Projects service: 

• When an applicant indicates they are applying for a modification application, the wording of the options for the ‘Indicative Modification Type’ field on the ‘Statutory Context’ screen within the Pre-modification application service has been amended to “Modification involving minor error, misdescription, or miscalculation or modifications with no environmental impact - Section 4.55(1)”.
• Introduction of a warning message on the ‘Assessment’ screen notifying assessing officers that a section 4.55(1) modification application must be determined within 14 days.  The warning banner is as follows: “A minor modification application must be determined within 14 days. You must determine this application by [dd/mm/yyyy]. After this date, the modification application cannot be refused. If the last day of the 14-day period falls on a Saturday, Sunday, public holiday or bank holiday, the determination date is automatically extended to the next business day. This timeframe does not apply to an application which seeks to modify a housing and productivity contribution condition, unless the proposed modification has been approved by the Minister”.
• Assessing officers cannot submit a major request for information for section 4.55(1) modification applications. 

Application Programming Interface (API) 

Minor updates have been made to the Online development application v2 API to support these Planning System Reform changes. These changes are not break/fix and there is no urgency for councils using these APIs to implement these changes, they could be included in your next scheduled API upgrade.

• New attribute ‘preferredAppReviewer’ has been added to the ‘CreateDA’, ‘UpdateDA’ and ‘EditDA’ operations
• New text values provided for ‘modificationType’ attribute to the ‘CreateDA’ and ‘UpdateDA’ operations
• New text accepted for the ‘modificationType’ attribute to the ‘EditDA’ operation.