Answering council's request for information if one comes. Receiving the decision notice.
The application has gone in and now nothing happens. For weeks. Then an email arrives with a reference number, a lot of clause numbers and no plain English, and you cannot tell from reading it whether this is routine or whether the project is in trouble.
It is almost always routine. A request for information is council asking a question mid-assessment — usually because something wasn't explained clearly enough, or a report they need wasn't included. It is not a refusal, and it is not a signal that they dislike the design. The assessment clock pauses while it is answered, which is why an information request can add months to a timeline that had been moving.
The hard part of this stage is not technical. It is that you are powerless and nobody is explaining the silence. Two to four months of council assessment is normal in Brisbane, and it feels much longer when you have been paying for a project that currently consists of waiting.
An information request is not a rejection. It is council telling you which argument you haven't made yet.
Council assessment typically runs two to four months. An RFI pauses the clock while it's answered, and answering it well — rather than defensively — is often what turns a difficult assessment into an approval with conditions you can live with.
Powerlessness, and the need for someone to interpret the silence. This is the stage where clients most often lose confidence, not because anything is wrong but because nothing appears to be happening and nobody is explaining why.
The applicant reads the RFI as a rejection and either concedes everything or argues badly. Conditions are accepted without being understood, and their cost consequences arrive later, at construction.
Assessment usually runs two to four months, and for most of it nothing visible happens. That silence is where people lose confidence — not because anything is wrong, but because nobody is explaining the nothing. So I will contact you during it even when there is no news, which is most of the time. If an RFI arrives it is not a rejection. It is a question, and answering it well rather than defensively is usually what turns a difficult assessment into conditions you can live with.
For a house, two to four months from lodgement to decision is a fair planning assumption, and I would rather you built your programme on the longer end. The process runs to set periods under Queensland's development assessment rules, but the elapsed time depends on what happens inside them — whether an information request is issued, how quickly it is answered, and whether extensions are agreed. An impact-assessable application that goes to public notification takes longer again. A decision-ready application through council's RiskSMART pathway can be dramatically faster.
It is a formal request for more information during assessment, and it is common enough to be treated as part of the process rather than a setback. The assessment clock stops while it sits with you, and starts again when you respond, so a slow response is a slow approval. Answer it properly rather than fast. The temptation is to concede everything or to argue back defensively, and both tend to produce worse outcomes than a considered response that addresses the actual concern and shows the reasoning.
First, read the decision notice properly. It states the reasons for refusal, and it also states your appeal period, which is short — get advice quickly rather than sitting with it. In Queensland you can make representations to council about a decision or its conditions and seek a negotiated decision notice, which is often faster and cheaper than an appeal. Appeal rights to the Planning and Environment Court or a development tribunal exist, but litigation is slow and expensive. Very often the best route is a modified application that answers the stated reasons directly.
Your decision notice states the relevant period for your approval — read it and put the date in your calendar, because approvals lapse if the development isn't substantially started within it. If you are going to run out of time, you can apply to extend the period, but you must do it before the approval lapses, not after. This catches people who get approval, pause for a year over budget or finances, and then discover the clock kept running. If your project is likely to stall, raise it early.
Not once it is lodged — but almost everything that determines the elapsed time is decided before that. An application that is genuinely decision-ready, that includes the reports the overlays require, and that answers the obvious questions before they are asked, moves faster because there is less reason to issue an information request. Where the project qualifies, council's RiskSMART pathway is the real lever. After lodgement, the only speed you control is how quickly you respond to anything council asks.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.