Brisbane City Council
Learn more about researching your property in Brisbane with our helpful guides!
Brisbane stands as Australia’s largest local government entity, comprising 26 wards and hosting 27 councillor positions. They have a huge list of online resources and tools to allow you to research your property.
How to use
Brisbane City Council Interactive Mapping
The Brisbane City Council (BCC) Interactive Mapping Tool is the number one thing that a town planner would use for this local government area. It is used to identify which layers may affect a property (e.g. zoning, overlays, neighbourhood plans, priority infrastructure plans etc).
To access the tool, simply head to: https://cityplan.brisbane.qld.gov.au/eplan/#/Property/0 or Google “Brisbane City Council Interactive Mapping”.
Knowing how to make the most of the BCC Interactive mapping will give you an advantage over people that don’t. This lesson will take you through the process of how to research a property.
Step 1:
Firstly, open the interactive mapping: https://cityplan.brisbane.qld.gov.au/eplan/#/Property/0
Your next step is to find the property on the map.
Click the ‘Search’ icon in the top left corner of the window and enter the address details and click the property when it shows up. Here you can search by address, lot and plan number, or just suburb/street.
The property, street, or suburb should now be centred on the screen and if you have selected an individual site, it will be surrounded by a bold red border.
Step 2:
Once you have found the property, all of the planning layers affecting the property show up within the left-hand column.
You can now review all of the important planning details of the property including:
- Property address, Lot and Plan number;
- Lot size;
- Zone, overlays, neighbourhood plan; and
- Local Government Infrastructure Plans.
Some tips:
- The contours are listed under the 'Boundaries and Labels' map layer on the right-hand column
- If you would like to scroll around the map and find suitable ‘looking’ sites, you simply need to use the zoom in and zoom out button on the left-hand side of the screen. When you find a site that you’re interested in, click the ‘Property’ icon in the top yellow ribbon and click on the site that you want further information about.
- If the property does not show up, it is most likely that the address you have searched does not exist in the Council system. In that event, in the same search box you can search by ‘Street’ or ‘Suburb’ instead of ‘Address’. We would recommend searching by the ‘Suburb’ and ‘Street name’ and using the map to manually find the actual address. This mostly occurs with corner sites, or sites that are listed on real estate listings with the wrong suburb, or wrong number (e.g. 8-10 Fenting Road might actually be listed as 8 Fenting Road, so searching for it as 10 Fenting Road will not work).
- For a good time-stamp, you can download a PDF version of the report on the top of the left-hand column under the image
Need some help researching a property in Brisbane? One of our town planners will be able to assist!
How to use Developmenti in Brisbane
Development.i is an online tool that shows a similar amount of detail to the interactive mapping but more concentrates on Development Application history. It has replaced the historical ‘PDOnline’ system which was phased out in early-2021. Development.i is the only location for easy access to approval history in Brisbane but we do note that all applications are not on the system so we will recommend giving Council a call to get them to check.
Learn how to use Development.i to research the approval history of a property or surrounding street below.
Let's get started!
Open Development.i by going to developmenti.brisbane.qld.gov.au and accept the terms and conditions (if required)
At this stage, you can search for applications by three different options:
- Location search (ie. the address of a property, a suburb, or the Lot & plan number);
- A specific application reference if you have an A00 number (eg. A001234567); or
- Search on the map by setting some parameters and surfing the mapping.
If you’re not looking for a particular site, you can also look at all of the development applications lodged or decided in the past 7 days which can also be interesting to see what kind of applications are being processed. You can do this by scrolling lower on the page as depicted in the below image.
Start searching
You can now easily search for the approval history for a specific subject site and all of the documents associated with any development applications.
Doing this, you can investigate what was approved, and what kinds of issues they might have had through their assessment process. If you’re looking to do a similar style of development, in the same area, you can use this an indication of what issue you might end up having.
Explore and set notifications
Using the bar along the top of the map, you can search for surrounding approvals. You can also filter by the date, whether it was approved, what the development is etc. Very handy if you are researching a particular development.
You can also use Developmenti system to set notifications so you can be informed periodically as to what is updating on active development applications. This is handy for both your own applications, and other peoples.
Some tips:
- BCC have a great set of guides for their system. Check them out here
- If you are researching a particular property, we recommend searching the surrounding properties so you know what else is could potentially be going on around the property. For example, if you’re searching 8 Fenton Road, try searching the whole street by way of the ‘map search’ function.
- Be patient, it can, unfortunately, take some time to load so if an address doesn’t show immediately, give it 10 seconds before you refresh the page;
- When typing in an address, just use the number and street name (leaving out the type of street or suburb) and let the system populate the address. We found that depending on how you write out the address, it might fail to find it. For example, ’10 Fenton Road, Yeronga’ won’t come up, but if you search ’10 Fenton’ it will populate the rest (note, this is not a real address);
- If you’ve found a site and you want to look at the surrounding approvals, make sure you zoom out slightly on the map, turn on ‘surrounding applications’ and change the ‘in progress’ filter to ‘all’ – a walk-through video below for reference;
- Use the ‘Map Search’ function to filter results and find similar applications to what you are wanting to do. For example, if you are wanting to lodge an application for a “Health Care Service” in the Annerley region, use the filters and see what other people have done – a walk-through video below for reference.
- You can register and ‘save’ searches which will allow you to set notifications about any changes in documentation, communications, or deadlines about an active development application – a walk-through video below for reference.
Finding Services and Infrastructure
At present, there is no interactive tool available for locating stormwater infrastructure from Brisbane City Council. The most effective approach for accessing this information is to perform a “dial before you dig” search. This service is offered at no cost, but you will need to create an account for access. You can create an account by visiting the following link: https://www.1100.com.au/
Furthermore, the “dial before you dig” search will also furnish you with details regarding any other infrastructure that may traverse the property in question.
Sewer and Water Brisbane
Thankfully, when it comes to sewer and water infrastructure, Urban Utilities offers an online mapping service for the Brisbane City Council. You can access this resource via the following link, which enables you to search for your property and view Urban Utilities’ infrastructure that is either in close proximity to or located on your property:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3d33e3db46894d46a9cffca08eae68b9
How to research flooding
Brisbane City Council has a great amount of online resources when it comes to flooding. They have two main sources of information which is the Interactive Mapping, which you should already know how to use from the above guide, the other is the Flood Awareness Mapping.
The difference between the two is that the Interactive mapping shows the legally adopted flood layers, whereas the Flood awareness mapping shows the reality of those layers and where they might actually affect an area or property. You’ll find that the Flood awareness map can sometimes (most of the time) be quite different to the Interactive map which can be important when researching a site and trying to understand the impact of a flooding on it.
The Flood Awareness Map also shows you historical flood levels (for example from 1974, 2011, and 2022).
Start investigating
You can use the instructions under the Interactive mapping guide to research any Flood overlays which can be found in the left or right hand column depending on whether the site is affected or no.
To use the Flood Awareness Mapping, there is a very simple step by step process using the Brisbane City Council website. Give it a try here: https://fam.brisbane.qld.gov.au/
How to research protected vegetation in Brisbane
Brisbane City Council has a great amount of online resources when it comes to biodiversity overlays. You can use the Interactive Mapping to research Biodiversity overlays, which you should already know how to use from the above guide, but you can also search the Natural Assets Local Law (NALL) which is a list of protected vegetation that is different and separate to the Interactive mapping.
You can do a Protected Vegetation Enquiry directly with the Council website here: https://forms.brisbane.qld.gov.au/protected-vegetation-enquiry. This will show you any NALL that affects your property.
