In South Australia a development application is assessed according to its pathway, and the pathway depends on how much impact the development could have and how complex it is. The rules sit in two places: the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016, and the Planning and Design Code, which sets the planning controls an application is assessed against.
General informationDA Application is a guide to development assessment in South Australia, written and published by Dotto. It describes the rules; it is not planning or legal advice for any site. PlanSA, the state’s planning portal, is the official place to check, and the Code it publishes is the one an application is assessed against.
What a development approval is made of
Under section 102 of the Act a development is approved only once a relevant authority has assessed it against, and granted a consent for, each matter that applies to it. The main ones are:
- Planning consent, against the Planning Rules.
- Building consent, against the Building Rules.
- Land division consent, where land is being divided, against the Code’s requirements and others the Act lists.
An application can seek all of the consents or any one or more of them, and, subject to the regulations, they need not be granted in any particular order. The development counts as approved when every consent it needs is granted and a relevant authority has indicated that it is approved. PlanSA describes that last step, development approval, as the final stage of every application, issued by a local council or the State Planning Commission.
Where the pathway comes from
The Act sorts development into three categories for planning consent: accepted, code assessed and impact assessed. PlanSA’s guide adds exempt work, which needs no approval at all, and splits the two larger categories in two: code assessed into deemed-to-satisfy or performance assessed, and impact assessed into restricted or impact assessed. That gives the six layers drawn at the top of every page here.
Which layer a proposal lands in is set mostly by the Code. Restricted development, for example, is listed zone by zone: each zone in the Code has a Table 4 naming the kinds of development classed as restricted, subject to any exclusions. PlanSA’s online Code can show the policies for an address and suggest the possible pathways for a proposal.
The Code changes often. PlanSA lists its earlier 2026 versions, each in force for a few weeks; version 2026.17, for instance, was operational from 10 to 23 September 2026. PlanSA publishes the current version in an online tool, beside the earlier ones.
A note on the words
The Act and PlanSA use “relevant authority” for whoever decides an application, whether an assessment manager, an assessment panel, the State Planning Commission, an accredited professional, a council or the Minister for Planning. The court that hears planning appeals is the Environment, Resources and Development Court, which PlanSA shortens to the ERD Court.
Five guides, one stack
Each guide reads the same six layers through one question, and lights the layers that question touches.
- The assessment pathways, from exempt to impact assessed
The Act’s three categories, PlanSA’s six names for them, and what puts a proposal in each.
- Public notice and representations
Which pathways are notified, who receives notice, how representations work, and the EIS for declared projects.
- Who decides: assessment managers, panels and the Commission
The six kinds of relevant authority, the accreditation levels, and the five kinds of assessment panel.
- Stages, timeframes and deemed planning consent
The stages to full approval, the business-day timeframes, the clock that stops, and the deemed consent notice.
- Reviews and appeals under section 202
The applicant’s routes, the third-party appeal that exists only for restricted development, and every time limit.