31 July 2026 release

Overview: 

This release includes: 

• Minor workflow changes to support introduction of BASIX certificates within the complying development, Online DA, and State DA application forms
• Minor enhancements to complying development, concurrence and referral, Online DA, Planning proposals, Major Projects and State DA services to support Planning System Reforms
• Non-breaking NSW Planning Portal API changes.

There are also some technical updates and fixes. View the sections below to understand the changes.

Minor changes to existing workflows 

Complying development certificate service 

The changes below were introduced to improve compliance and security in relation to BASIX Certificates that are supplied as part of the complying development certificate and modification application process in the NSW Planning Portal:

• BASIX Certificate numbers entered by the applicant in the workflow will be automatically validated against the records held in the BASIX Tool in the NSW Planning Portal.
• Validation messages will appear on screen beside input BASIX Certificates. They will advise the user if the certificate number is valid, invalid, a duplicate entry, or has been identified as an address mismatch requiring further validation. 
• Address validation for BASIX certificates is based on the local government area and postcode.
• For complying development certificate applications where the applicant manually entered the address details, all BASIX certificates will be tagged as ‘Review required.’ They will not be visible to the applicant until the relevant council or certifier has validated them. 
• Valid BASIX certificates will be visible to the applicant on the ‘Documents’ tab. Certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ will not be visible to the applicant until they have been validated. 
• The ‘Basix certificate’ document category has been removed from the options on the ‘Requirements and upload’ screen. 
• For complying development certificate applications that were ‘In progress’ on 31 July 2026:
  • applicants will be required to re-enter and validate BASIX certificates before submitting the application. 
  • error messaging will be displayed at the top of the application form screens to provide guidance on how to complete this task.
  • any manually uploaded BASIX certificates will be marked as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab.
• New option ‘Review BASIX certificates’ in ‘Actions’ menu for council and certifier users. 
• Council or certifier users need to validate certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ using the new ‘Review BASIX certificates’ functionality in the ‘Actions’ menu. Once validated the ‘Review required’ tag will be removed.
• Council or certifier users can add a new BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. Any certificates added will be validated and display validation messages for their attention and action. 
• Validated BASIX certificates added by a council or certifier user, will be automatically uploaded to the ‘Documents’ tab. Invalid certificates will not be uploaded.
• Council or certifier users can delete an invalid BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. The deleted certificate will be tagged as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab within the application. 

Development application (Council) service

The changes below were introduced to improve compliance and security in relation to BASIX Certificates that are supplied as part of the development and modification application process in the NSW Planning Portal:

• BASIX Certificate numbers entered by the applicant in the workflow will be automatically validated against the records held in the BASIX Tool in the NSW Planning Portal.
• Validation messages will appear on screen beside input BASIX Certificates. They will advise the user if the certificate number is valid, invalid, a duplicate entry, or has been identified as an address mismatch requiring further validation. 
• Address validation for BASIX certificates is based on the local government area and postcode.
• For development applications where the applicant manually entered the address details, all BASIX certificates will be tagged as ‘Review required’. They will not be visible to the applicant until the relevant council has validated them. 
• Valid BASIX certificates will be visible to the applicant on the ‘Documents’ tab. Certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ will not be visible to the applicant until they have been validated. 
• The ‘Basix certificate’ document category has been removed from the options on the ‘Requirements and upload’ screen. 
• For development applications that were ‘In progress’ on 31 July 2026:
  • applicants will be required to re-enter and validate BASIX certificates before submitting the application. 
  • error messaging will be displayed at the top of the application form screens to provide guidance on how to complete this task.
  • any manually uploaded BASIX certificates will be marked as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab.
• New option ‘Review BASIX certificates’ in ‘Actions’ menu for council users. 
• Council users need to validate certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ using the new ‘Review BASIX certificates’ functionality in the ‘Actions’ menu. Once validated the ‘Review required’ tag will be removed.
• Council users can add a new BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. Any certificates added will be validated and display validation messages for their attention and action. 
• Validated BASIX certificates added by a council user will be automatically uploaded to the ‘Documents’ tab. Invalid certificates will not be uploaded.
• Council users can delete an invalid BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. The deleted certificate will be tagged as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab within the application. 

The following changes were made to support Planning System Reforms to Planning Panels:

• The option ‘Local Planning Panel’ to be replaced with ‘Local Planning Panel – local development’ for the question “Provide the anticipated determination body” on the ‘Preliminary assessment’ screen.
• The option ‘Local Planning Panel – regionally significant development’ added to the question “Provide the anticipated determination body” on the ‘Preliminary assessment’ screen.
• The option ‘Local Planning Panel’ to be replaced with ‘Local Planning Panel – local development’ to the question “Name the determining authority?” on the ‘Determination” screen. 
• The option ‘Local Planning Panel – regionally significant development’ added to the question “Name the determining authority?” on the ‘Determination” screen.  
• A new date field ‘Council assessment report provided to panel’ added to the determination screen and made conditionally visible and conditionally mandatory on the condition if ‘Local Planning Panel – regionally significant development’ selected as the determining authority. This field will allow not allow a future date.

Note:  All existing applications that have selected the ‘Local Planning Panel’ as the determination body will be automatically updated by the system to ‘Local Planning Panel – local development’.

Development application (State Agencies) service

The changes below were introduced to improve compliance and security in relation to BASIX Certificates that are supplied as part of the development and modification application process in the NSW Planning Portal:

• BASIX Certificate numbers entered by the applicant in the workflow will be automatically validated against the records held in the BASIX Tool in the NSW Planning Portal.
• Validation messages will appear on screen beside input BASIX Certificates. They will advise the user if the certificate number is valid, invalid, a duplicate entry, or has been identified as an address mismatch requiring further validation. 
• Address validation for BASIX certificates is based on the local government area and postcode.
• For development applications where the applicant manually entered the address details, all BASIX certificates will be tagged as ‘Review required’. They will not be visible to the applicant until the relevant council has validated them. 
• Valid BASIX certificates will be visible to the applicant on the ‘Documents’ tab. Certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ will not be visible to the applicant until they have been validated. 
• The ‘Basix certificate’ document category has been removed from the options on the ‘Requirements and upload’ screen. 
• For development applications that were ‘In progress’ on 31 July 2026:
  • applicants will be required to re-enter and validate BASIX certificates before submitting the application. 
  • error messaging will be displayed at the top of the application form screens to provide guidance on how to complete this task.
  • any manually uploaded BASIX certificates will be marked as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab.
• New option ‘Review BASIX certificates’ in ‘Actions’ menu for council users. 
• Council users need to validate certificates tagged as ‘Review required’ using the new ‘Review BASIX certificates’ functionality in the ‘Actions’ menu. Once validated the ‘Review required’ tag will be removed.
• Council users can add a new BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. Any certificates added will be validated and display validation messages for their attention and action. 
• Validated BASIX certificates added by a council user, will be automatically uploaded to the ‘Documents’ tab. Invalid certificates will not be uploaded.

Council users can delete an invalid BASIX certificate using the ‘Edit’ functionality. The deleted certificate will be tagged as ‘Superseded’ on the ‘Documents’ tab within the application. 

Enhancements to existing services

Following consultation with stakeholders, this release includes enhancements to the following services:

Concurrence and referral service

• The following enhancements were made to support the introduction of the Development Coordination Authority:
• Visibility of clause legislation details within the case details, referral review and assessment screens. 
• Enhancement to Agency referral workflows to ensure referrals can only be created for agencies supported under the Development Coordination Authority (DCA) operating model. This includes the refinement of the agencies available from the ‘Pathway selection’ options.
• The DCA Technical Advisory Advice assessment templates for Planning Proposal referrals have been updated. No changes have been made to existing template generation processes, referral workflows or business rules.
• The DCA assessment process has been enhanced to allow DCA Coordinators to submit an Assessment Outcome without waiting for outstanding Agency or Technical Expert responses. Where an Assessment Outcome is submitted, any active Agency or Referral cases related to the assessed clause will be automatically cancelled. Existing assessment processes and validations remain unchanged. 
• A new mandatory risk assessment question will be displayed on the ‘Assessment Outcome’ screen when the applicable clause and the ‘Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water > Water Group’ is selected. 
• The selected risk assessment outcome will be included in notifications sent to the Water Group following the determination of the related development application. 

Development application (Council and State) service

The following enhancements were made to support the introduction of the Development Coordination Authority:

• The referral process has been enhanced to display legislation and numbering information against clauses on the application form and payment activities.
• Ability to search and filter clauses using legislation and numbering values on the application form. 
• Visibility of clause legislation details within the case details, referral review and assessment screens. 

The following enhancements were made to the risk assessment module of the Major Projects Portal:

• Removed the “Modification factor” field from the Risk Assessment review screen. 
• ‘Current Project Status’, ‘Current Overall Risk Level’ and ‘Project Type’ will now automatically populate from previous ‘Risk Assessment’ cases on the review screen.
• A new “Indicative Number of Inspections” table added to the review screen after the question ‘Are there any mitigating circumstances that will prevent the indicative number of inspections for this development from being conducted?’. The table displays ‘Overall Project Risk’, ‘Risk Outcome’, and ‘Risk Treatment’ to provide greater visibility of the assessment results.
• To improve the accuracy of risk assessments the thresholds used to determine the Overall Risk Score has been updated.

The following enhancements were made to support the introduction of the Development Coordination Authority:

• New information message to inform Major Projects users of Agency consultation changes. This is informational only and does not introduce any changes to existing consultation processes, validations or workflows.

Planning Proposals service

The following changes were made to the Planning Proposal service to support reforms to the NSW Local Environmental Plan (LEP) making process:

• Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the finalisation stage of a Section 3.22 Planning Proposal application removed.
• Changes to the display of the KPI end date in the ‘Active Management Plan’ for the Department officer. This information will update if the proposal category changes.
• Options for question ‘Which category of planning proposal is this?’ have been updated from ‘Simple’/’Complex’ to ‘Standard’/’Complex’. This will be visible within system generated application forms.
• Any ‘Simple’ category applications since 1 July 2026 will be automatically updated to ‘Standard.
• Additional help text added for the question ‘Is the proposal consistent with the Ministerial Directions?’ on the ‘Strategic planning assessment’ screen for the council officer.
• Removed the question ‘Is the proposal consistent with all relevant Ministerial Directions?’ and replaced with ‘Is the proposal consistent with the Ministerial Directions?’ on the ‘Adequacy assessment’ and ‘Gateway determination’ screens for the Department officer.
• Applicants can initiate a rezoning review based on the updated categorisation and SLA rules. This option is located next to the ‘Actions’ button in the application header.
• Changes to the SLA timeframes related to when an applicant can initiate a rezoning review if a council has failed to assess the application. Standard applications increased from 90 to 95 business days, and complex applications increased from 90 to 120 business days.
• Questions ‘Please provide a brief explanation of how the proposal demonstrates strategic merit’ and ‘Please provide a brief explanation of how the proposal demonstrates site-specific merit’ changed to optional on the ‘AMP and Risk assessment’ screen.

The following enhancements were made to support the introduction of the Development Coordination Authority:

• Enhancement to Agency referral workflows to ensure referrals can only be created for agencies supported under the Development Coordination Authority (DCA) operating model. This includes the refinement of the agencies available from the ‘Agency consultation’ options.
• The DCA Technical Advisory Advice assessment templates for Planning Proposal referrals have been updated. No changes have been made to existing template generation processes, referral workflows or business rules.

Technical updates and fixes

• Enhanced the BASIX tool where the central heating systems API now ensures all required parameters are included in requests, enabling accurate and successful energy score calculations.
• Addressed the error causing the removal of lodgement details on applications in the Post Consent Certificate (PCC), and standalone Planning Panel Secretariat and Concurrence and Referral cases.
• When a Written Direction Notice (WDN) - Part B is completed, and the non-council certifier answers no to the question ‘Has the Written Direction Notice been complied with’, a notification email will be sent to council.
• Assessment clock logic related to lapsed days, and additional information cases has been corrected in the Online DA service.
• Removed error message advising the applicant that ‘The site selected is not a Special Contribution Area’ displayed for some addresses in the Illawarra region.
• Update to the Strata Bond amount percentage from 2% to 3% in the Strata bond case.
• Removed invalid characters and duplicate referral clause display on the ‘Related planning information’ screen within the Online DA and State DA service application form. 
• Corrected spacing and alignment issues on the ‘Assessment outcome’ screen for Development Coordination Authority users within the concurrence and referral service.
• Implemented due date functionality on the ‘Assessment’ screen for the Development Coordination Authority Coordinator within the concurrence and referral service. Past dates will no longer be able to be input.
• When a council user selects ‘cancel’ on the ‘Proceed to determination’ pop-up screen in the concurrence and referral service, they are returned to the ‘Advice summary’ page.
• Updated email recipient mapping for DCA payment and technical expert notifications.
• Removed duplicate information text within the case summary of a state development application.
• Enhanced visibility of non-DCA clause updates during the ‘Edit CNR’ process, to include all clause-level actions in the history log.
• Corrected technical expert referral configuration where referrals to ‘DCA Hazards and Resource Advisory’ were incorrectly sending notifications using Biodiversity and Heritage team details.
• Corrected icon representation for ‘Not Agreed’ status in the concurrence and referral case summary.
• Council officer able to ‘Proceed to determination’ once the DCA referral clock has expired.

Training and support 

The following step-by-step guides have been updated or created this month and can be access on the Support Hub: