Keep a planning application moving.

Permit and DA management, consultant coordination and RFI responses, run as a schedule rather than left as correspondence.

Planning & approvals

Most applications stall on process, not merit.

A request for further information pauses the statutory clock. It does not pause rates, land tax, interest on acquisition debt, or a settlement date. Regional councils and referral authorities are chronically under-resourced, and an application treated as correspondence — answered piecemeal, whenever someone gets to it — is the one that stalls for months.

This is for landowners and developers with a live application, one about to be lodged, or one that has already stalled on an RFI or a referral authority's objection.

We run the planning process as a managed project, with a schedule, an owner for every item, and one consolidated submission — not a folder of half-answered correspondence.

What you get

Applications run as a project.

Permit and DA lodgement management

Coordinating the town planner, surveyor and engineers so the application goes in complete the first time.

RFI and referral-authority responses

Turning a request for information into a scheduled set of items, each with an owner, a cost and a date — not a to-do list nobody is driving.

Conditions management

Tracking permit conditions through to satisfaction, including the ones that quietly gate a subdivision or a titles application.

Subdivision and titles workstreams

The separate approvals — servicing authorities, engineering sign-off, statement of compliance — that can each independently hold up a title. See the five clusters an RFI falls into.

How it works

Close items in parallel, not in series.

Turn the letter into a schedule

Read the permit or the RFI in full and break it into items, each with an owner, a cost and a delivery date.

Identify determining referral authorities early

Make contact in writing before a concern becomes a formal objection.

Commission long-lead consultants in parallel

Arborist, traffic, geotechnical, survey — started together rather than one after another.

Respond once, consolidated

Every item mapped to the document answering it, rather than drip-feeding answers to the planner.

Track conditions through to satisfaction

Including the subdivision-stage approvals that gate titles.

Run finance on the same timetable

So a facility is not left to expire while the application is still open. See development finance while an RFI is open.

What it costs. A straightforward permit condition is a different job from an 18-month regional RFI across two referral authorities, so the scope is set for the application in front of us and the fee confirmed in writing before work starts.

Start a conversation

Proof, not promises

Applications we have kept moving.

Individual past transactions, included to show how the process was run. They are not offers, benchmarks or a guarantee of any outcome, timeframe or approval on another application.

RFI to approval

Yarragon, VIC

An 18-month regional permit application, held up by a Baw Baw Shire RFI covering arborist, drainage and gas-abolishment items, run as a scheduled project through to approval.

Read the Yarragon case study →

Referral objection

Shepparton, VIC

A Residential Growth Zone permit held up by Goulburn Valley Water's servicing objection, resolved with one consolidated evidence package rather than partial responses.

Read the Shepparton case study →

Tools & reading

What tends to gate a title.

Planning risk is easier to manage once it is legible — the RFI letter in full, a response schedule, and every referral authority's correspondence in writing, assembled before the finance conversation rather than during it.

The subdivision workstreams that actually gate titles

Build-over-easement consent: the timing risk developers miss

Partial discharge after subdivision: selling one lot and keeping the facility

Questions

What we get asked first.

Can you guarantee my permit will be approved?

No. Planning decisions rest with the responsible authority. We manage the process and the evidence; we do not, and cannot, guarantee the outcome.

How long will an RFI take to resolve?

There is no reliable general answer, and any figure quoted as typical should be treated with suspicion. It depends on the number of items, consultant queues, referral authorities and council resourcing. Our Yarragon file, one published example, ran about 18 months to approval.

Do you replace my town planner?

No. We coordinate the planner, surveyor and engineers around a schedule; the planning advice itself remains theirs.

Can I get finance while a permit is still open?

Sometimes. Parts of the market will assess a site with a live application and a well-evidenced pathway. Whether that applies to you depends on the site, security and exit — see development finance while an RFI is open.

What if a referral authority objects?

Not automatically fatal. Many objections exist because the authority has not been given enough to satisfy itself on one technical point. We identify what is needed and present it as one package.

Do you manage subdivision and titles too?

Yes. The workstreams that gate a title — servicing, engineering sign-off, statements of compliance — are part of the same management job.

Send the letter, not the permit

If an RFI has landed, the useful time is now.

Send us the RFI or the application, the title and your critical dates. We will tell you candidly what the pathway looks like and where the evidence gaps are.

Start a conversation Funding while an RFI is open

General information only. This is not planning, legal, tax or financial advice, and nothing on this page is a guarantee of a planning outcome, approval, timeframe or title. Siare manages and coordinates the planning process and the consultants involved in it; it does not hold planning authority, and planning decisions rest with the responsible authority. Where finance is discussed, Siare arranges it as broker and nothing here is an offer of finance. Case studies describe individual past transactions and are not a guarantee of any future outcome. Obtain your own independent planning, legal and financial advice.