Strata Subdivision as Complying Development

Recently, there has been amendments to legislation that now makes strata subdivision complying development across all Councils in NSW.

 

The legislation that was amended was the SEPP (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008, also known as the Codes SEPP, and was effective from June 4th 2010.

This means that a development consent is not required from Council for a strata subdivision.

Instead an Accredited Certifier (or Council) can issue a Complying Development Certificate (CDC) for a development for strata subdivision. Once the CDC is issued the Accredited Certifier (or Council) can then issue a strata certificate, ie, sign the final Strata Plan to allow lodgement at the Land Titles Office.

There are however two conditions:

• The building DA must be less than five (5) years old
• Dual occupancies are excluded.

For these two cases, a development consent would be required for strata subdivision.

For more information, you can view Planning NSW’s Planning Circular (PS 10-007)

This is a positive outcome, as it removes these development applications from Council’s system, and frees up more resources for Council to concentrate on more complicated applications.

It also a positive for developers where in some previous circumstances they may have found themselves in a situation at the end of a project where the application for development consent for strata subdivision had been overlooked. This can cause significant delays if a development consent process would have been required. Instead, now a complying development certificate can be issued.

Gordon Wren
Chairman Subdn & Strata Ctte
Association of Accredited Certifiers