Curious residents can now keep an ‘i’ on new building developments via the Development.i website, launched by Ipswich City Council in late August.
Development.i is an online portal that lists basic planning and development information for both current and historic properties throughout the Greater Springfield region.
It includes all development application forms lodged with the Council since 1 January 2005, where Council is the Assessment Manager and holds the assessment record under the Planning Act 2016 and the Economic Development Act 2012.
Listings are made available within 24 hours of the lodgement of forms and other paperwork.
According to the Council, it received 1,300 development applications across the entire Ipswich region during the 2021-2022 financial year – roughly a seven per cent annual increase, which mirrored the region’s rising population figures.
Ipswich Mayor Teresa Harding – who also serves as Growth, Infrastructure and Waste Committee Chair – said the tool is designed for residents who have been seeking extra transparency and a way to voice their opinions about developments being planned in their neighbourhoods.
“This tool will make it easier for the community to access information about how and where our city is growing, and to have a say in the planning process, as it’s important to achieve shared community outcomes,” Mayor Harding said.
“It puts a wealth of information at residents’ fingertips, making it easy to search for property information, be notified about development applications and lodge submissions or comments on applications.
“It is also mobile friendly, which means it can be accessed on the go.”
It replaces Council’s previous PD Online application tracking system, which was much less user-friendly, the mayor said.
Division 2 Councillor Paul Tully, who is Deputy Chairperson on the Growth, Infrastructure and Waste Committee, said the Development.i tool had a robust search mechanism.
“The strength of this new tool is that anyone can log on and quickly see property information specific to their needs,” Cr Tully said.
“Users can look up what development applications are active in your street, and search results can be filtered and shown on a map for easy reference. [You] can also set up alerts to be notified when development applications are lodged.”
Some filtering functionality is only available for applications lodged since July 1, 2017. Over time, this will expand to include some application types for lodgments prior to this date.
According to the Council, the existing Ipswich Planning Scheme is under revision and will also incorporate modern electronic functionality.
The New Ipswich Planning Scheme Project is a multi-year project, intended to be completed by 2024.
You can visit the Development.i portal at developmenti.ipswich.qld.gov.au – note that the web domain does not include the ‘dot’ between ‘development’ and ‘i’.
For other information about Ipswich City Council development, visit www.ipswichplanning.com.au or call 3810 6666.
