Photo by chezmichelle (flickr.com)
As you may know PlanningAlerts.org.au works by collecting development applications from many local council websites and republishes them in an easy to use way, notifying people of new applications in their area and in that way keeping you informed of things happening near you.
To do this we need to know where those applications are. So far, we know where around 60 local authorities keep their applications. There’s more than 500 local authorities that we don’t know about.
We’d like to know about a whole lot more so that PlanningAlerts can be useful to more Australians. That’s where you come in.
We’ve created a Google spreadsheet with all the local councils that we know about which we don’t yet support on PlanningAlerts.org.au and we’d like your help to fill it in.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmvYMal8CGUsdG1tM0lEWUctR194eGN6bUh0VGFfc1E&hl=en
This is what you do. Go to the spreadsheet.
- Pick a council that hasn’t had all its details filled in yet (“DA’s online?” column is empty). The councils are ordered with the big councils (lots of people) at the top. So, start with those near the top if possible.
- Follow the link to the council website (“Website” column)
- Find where they store their development applications
- Fill in the details in “DA’s online?”, “as HTML”, “website for DA notice” columns. “DA’s online” just says whether the council publishes the development applications online. Hopefully that will be a yes. “as HTML” should be “Yes” when they publish it as a regular web page. Fill in “No” if they publish the information in PDF or Microsoft Word documents for instance. The “website for DA notice” is just a link to the page on the council website where the development applications are stored.
- Repeat for a few councils
- Add a comment to this blog post to let us and everyone else know you helped out
- Give yourself a big pat on the back.
Thank you in advance!
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14 Comments
Just added Yarra Ranges, someone else beat me to Knox! ;-)
Sadly got to go out now, will try for more later..
Nope – can’t see the DA for Moonee Valley
Did some work for Cowra, sort of. #246
Added Moreton Bay Regional Council to the end of the list.
Kiama (A)
Brisbane City Council needs to be added if not done already. Much development going on in a chaotic manner here.
Brisbane City Council is already on PlanningAlerts. Have a look at: http://www.planningalerts.org.au/authorities/brisbane/applications
The full list of planning authorities that are currently in PlanningAlerts is http://www.planningalerts.org.au/about#authorities
I work for Quest Community Newspapers in Brisbane and would like to use a map of Moreton Bay Regional Council area showing where the development is occuring. Would be happy to credit to Open Australia but wondering if such a map can be generated. With planning alerts its within a 2km radius so would have to get multiple alerts and try a bit of patchwork job. Also not sure how to put development apps on google maps. Is there an easier way.
Hi Julian – We have a blog post on how to embed a map with PlanningAlerts: http://blog.openaustralia.org/2010/06/17/embed-a-planningalerts-google-map-in-your-blog/
If you need any further help just shout
I was looking for the DA notifications page for southern Downs QLD and found a reference to http://www.smarteda.qld.gov.au – This may be usefull for SOME QLD Planning Authorities ?
BTW, I’ve done a few others :)
Did a few for ya. Hope it goes well.
We’re close enough to taste it, but it’s not there yet.
I work for Quest Community Newspapers in Brisbane and would like to use a map of Moreton Bay Regional Council area showing where the development is occuring. Would be happy to credit to Open Australia but wondering if such a map can be generated. With planning alerts its within a 2km radius so would have to get multiple alerts and try a bit of patchwork job. Also not sure how to put development apps on google maps. Is there an easier way.
Hi Kim,
Thanks for your question, have a look at our previous blog post about embedding a Google Map on your website and let us know how you get on.
If you have any trouble, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Cheers, Henare
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