NSW council development activity
An open dataset: every New South Wales council, with what people applied to build, how fast the council decided, and what the ABS separately recorded as approved. 130 councils, 125 reconciled across both registers.
Why this exists. The NSW Planning Portal publishes applications. The ABS publishes approvals. Neither publishes them together, so the gap between what is proposed and what is permitted is not something you can look up. This file is that join, released under the same licence we rely on from both sources.
| Download | council-development-activity.json · JSON · updated 23 Aug 2026 |
| Licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — free to use commercially and to build on, with attribution |
| Coverage | All 130 NSW councils; applications from January 2019; ABS approvals over the most recent 12 months |
| Built from | NSW Planning Portal Online DA API (CC-BY) and ABS Building Approvals by LGA (CC-BY 4.0) |
| Method | Dwelling counts use Development Applications only, deduplicated on address and count — modification applications restate a project's whole dwelling figure and would double-count it. Decision time is lodgement to determination where both dates exist. The two registers cover different periods, so the pipeline is annualised before any ratio is given. |
| Known limits | 5 councils could not be name-matched to the ABS register and carry no approvals figure rather than a zero. Cost of works is the applicant's own estimate. Applications are not consents. |
Fields
| Field | Meaning | Label |
|---|---|---|
da | Development applications lodged since 2019 | Official fact |
dwellings_proposed | New dwellings across those applications, deduplicated | Calculated |
median_days | Median days, lodgement to determination | Calculated |
median_cost | Median stated cost of works | Calculated |
abs_dwellings | Dwellings approved, ABS, most recent 12 months | Official fact |
pipeline_ratio | Dwellings proposed per year ÷ dwellings approved per year | Calculated |
heritage | Heritage items listed in that council area | Official fact |