A fast-track lane for well-prepared DAs opened on 1 July. The backlog behind it is down 40 per cent

• Outstanding DAs, at the peak1,099
• Outstanding DAs, end May 2026652
• Legacy DAs (12+ months), peak to now186 → 68
• ADA fast-track starts1 July 2026

If you have plans in with council, the new Accelerated Development Application (ADA) process, announced on 7 July and running since 1 July, works like this: applications that arrive well-prepared get a quick eligibility check up front, and those that pass are fast-tracked through a dedicated assessment pathway. Council says the scheme is modelled on the City of Newcastle’s, and that moving straightforward proposals through faster frees its planners to concentrate on complex ones. It sits alongside a wider set of assessment changes, including the recruitment of additional planners.

The backlog numbers council published with it

The release discloses where the assessment queue actually stands. Outstanding development applications peaked at 1,099 and were down to 652 at the end of May 2026, a fall of about 40 per cent. Legacy applications, those older than twelve months, have fallen 63 per cent from a peak of 186 to 68, which council says is the lowest level since October 2022. It attributes the improvement to targeted process reforms, additional resources and a deliberate focus on clearing the oldest applications first, over the past 18 months.

Why it exists

Mayor Lawrie McKinna tied the change to feedback from the development industry: “When we held our first ‘Building a Strong Foundation for the Future’ forum, the message was clear – Council must improve assessment times,” he said in the release. “We have already made huge progress in the Development Assessment space, and we are building on that success with this process.”

How the fast-track actually works, from council’s ADA page: before lodging, an applicant runs a free pre-lodgement check called Accelerated Lodgement Ready through the NSW Planning Portal, submitting a checklist, a statement of environmental effects and the plans. Council reviews that and issues a letter within five to ten days marking the application eligible, eligible with amendments, or not eligible. An eligible application is then generally determined within ten to twenty-five days of lodgement. There is one catch worth knowing: you get a single attempt at the readiness check, and an under-prepared submission is sent back to the standard DA pathway rather than fast-tracked. Council frames the scheme as being for well-prepared, low-risk proposals, and offers a self-check eligibility tool on the same page.

For context on what the DA pipeline feeds, the region’s growth is concentrated in the northern corridor, and the projects council itself is building are on the Record’s running index.