Where a DA is required, preparing the application, the supporting reports and the analysis, and lodging it with council.
Most people arrive at this question with two things tangled together. A Development Approval and a Building Approval are different permissions, granted by different people, against different rules. The Development Approval is council's answer to whether you may do this with the land — height, setbacks, site cover, character, demolition, overlays. The Building Approval, usually issued by a private certifier much later, is about whether the thing is built properly.
Which matters here because the honest answer for a lot of Brisbane renovations is that no Development Application is needed at all. If the work sits within the City Plan rules for your zone, it can be accepted development — no application, no council assessment, no waiting. You will still need a Building Approval.
The projects that do need one are usually recognisable: a pre-1947 house in a character or traditional building character overlay, demolition, a second storey pushing past height, anything encroaching on setbacks, or a site carrying a flood, bushfire or heritage overlay. Finding out which of those applies to your address is the first job, and it can be done before you hire anyone.
Plenty of Brisbane renovations need no Development Application at all. Find out before you pay anyone to assume otherwise.
A DA is council's permission for what you propose to do with the land — height, setbacks, site cover, character, demolition, overlays. Not every project needs one; many straightforward additions are accepted development. When one is required, how the application is framed materially affects the outcome.
Handing over something you were dreading. Council is, to most people, an opaque authority that can say no for reasons nobody explains. Not having to be the one who deals with it is worth a great deal on its own.
A self-lodged application that answers the wrong questions, or a builder's application that treats the planning scheme as an obstacle rather than a set of rules. Refusal, an appeal, or a scheme cut down to whatever was easiest to approve.
No architect can guarantee an approval. What I can do is tell you honestly what is likely before you spend money finding out, and put the application in a form that gives it the best chance. Knowing what this council will accept, what it will not, and what is worth arguing for is not something you can look up. And not every project needs a DA at all — many straightforward additions sit within the rules and go nowhere near an application.
You need to answer it twice, because there are two approvals. Planning: many internal renovations and modest additions that stay within the City Plan's setbacks, height and site cover are accepted development and need no Development Application. Building: almost everything structural needs a Building Approval from a private certifier regardless. Then there are the smaller ones people forget — moving a bathroom or kitchen usually triggers a separate plumbing approval through council, and you may meet asbestos, tree protection or footpath permit requirements as well.
There are two costs and they are worth separating. Council's application fee is set in its schedule of fees and charges, which is revised each financial year — check the current schedule for your category of development rather than relying on a figure you read somewhere. Then there is the cost of preparing the application: the drawings, the planning assessment against the relevant codes, and any specialist reports your overlays require. A straightforward code-assessable house application sits at the modest end. An impact-assessable one that goes to public notification is a different order of cost entirely.
RiskSMART is Brisbane City Council's fast-track pathway for lower-risk applications. Rather than council doing the full assessment from scratch, an accredited RiskSMART agent prepares the application and certifies that it meets the requirements, and council aims to return a decision in around ten business days for applications that arrive genuinely decision-ready. Not every proposal qualifies, and you are paying an accredited consultant for the certification, so it is a trade of fee for time. Worth asking about early, because it can change your programme by months.
A Development Approval is planning permission from council — whether you may build this, here, at this height, this close to the boundary, on a site with these overlays. It is assessed against the City Plan. A Building Approval is technical — structure, fire, waterproofing, energy, safety — assessed against the building code, and in Queensland it is normally issued by a private building certifier rather than council. It comes later, after the construction drawings and engineering are done. Plenty of projects need a Building Approval and no Development Application. Very few are the other way round.
The drawings — site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections, usually shading or streetscape analysis — plus the application forms and a written assessment explaining how the proposal responds to each applicable code and overlay. That written part is where applications are won and lost. A proposal that names the rule it doesn't meet, and argues the performance outcome it achieves instead, reads very differently from one that hopes nobody notices. Depending on your site you may also need a flood report, arborist report, heritage advice or an acoustic assessment.
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.