Development application alerts

Know what's being lodged next door.

Watch an address, a radius or a whole suburb anywhere in New South Wales. When a new development application is lodged inside your watch area, it lands in your inbox — with the address, what's proposed, its status and how far away it is.

2 alerts free, no credit card✓ Every NSW council✓ One-click unsubscribe

DA alerts at a glance

Watch a point with a radius from 100 m to 10 km, or an entire suburb
Covers every council in NSW — no coverage gaps to check first
Optional keyword filter, so you only hear about what matters
Daily or weekly email digest — never a 3am notification
Quiet when there's nothing: no matches means no email
Unsubscribe from any email in one click, no login required

Three steps to a standing watch.

Alerts are built on the same site data you already use — pick the lot, choose how wide to watch, and you're done. There's no separate console to learn.

  1. Pick your spotSearch any NSW address or click a lot on the map. The alert inherits its position and council automatically.
  2. Set the areaChoose a radius around the point, or switch to suburb mode to watch a whole locality. Add a keyword like "subdivision" or "dual occupancy" to narrow it.
  3. Choose a cadenceDaily or weekly. The digest arrives each morning, and only when there's something new to report.

Every application, with the detail you need to triage it.

Each digest lists the applications lodged in your area since the last one — nearest first. For every application you get the street address, what's being proposed, the current status and the straight-line distance from the point you're watching.

That's usually enough to decide in seconds whether something needs a closer look. When it does, the site is one click away in the full viewer, with zoning, overlays and feasibility already loaded.

Statewide, so silence actually means silence.

Alerts read the NSW Planning Portal's DA tracker, which covers every council in the state. That matters more than it sounds: platforms that build their own permit database can only alert you where they've digitised the data, so a quiet week is ambiguous — it could mean nothing was lodged, or it could mean that council simply isn't covered.

Because we read the state feed directly, an empty week means an empty week.

Radius or suburb — which to use

 Radius watchSuburb watch
Best forA specific site you own, are buying, or are designing nearProspecting or tracking activity across a market you work in
Area100 m – 10 km around a pointThe whole named suburb
Tells you distanceYes — nearest application firstNo, results are suburb-wide
Typical volumeLow; a few a month at 500 mHigher; use a keyword to keep it useful
Set up fromA selected lotA suburb name
Where this comes from, and what it can't tell you. Alerts are sourced from the NSW Planning Portal DA tracker. Councils publish to it on their own schedule, so an application can appear days after it was actually lodged — alerts are a reliable early-warning signal, not a legal notification service. If you need certainty about a specific application, confirm it with the council. Alerts are an indicative research tool like the rest of JS Site Viewer.

Questions

How many alerts can I have?

Two on the free plan, which is enough to watch a site you own and a suburb you're active in. Pro plans are unlimited. Existing alerts keep running if you later downgrade — you just can't add new ones past the free limit.

How often do they arrive?

Daily or weekly, your choice per alert, sent in the morning Sydney time. If nothing new matched, nothing is sent — an empty inbox is a real signal, not a failure.

Will I get the same application twice?

No. Each application is recorded against your alert the first time it matches and never reported again, even though we re-scan a rolling two-week window to catch late council data entry.

Does it cover complying development (CDC) as well as DAs?

Yes — the Planning Portal feed includes complying development certificates and modifications alongside standard development applications, and the type is shown for each entry.

How do I stop an alert?

Every email has a one-click link that switches that alert off without signing in. You can also pause, edit or delete alerts from the app at any time.

Is there a free alternative?

Yes, and we'd rather tell you than have you find out later: PlanningAlerts, run by the OpenAustralia Foundation, emails free address-and-radius DA alerts across hundreds of councils. Our alerts are worth paying for when you want keyword filtering, suburb watches, and the application sitting inside a full site report rather than in isolation.

Related features

An alert tells you something was lodged. These tell you what it means for your site.

Start watching your first site.

Two alerts free, no credit card. Set one up in about thirty seconds.

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