City of Sydney survey plans: a checklist before your DA quote

Preparing a development application for a property in the City of Sydney council area? Give your surveyor the current requirements for that application before agreeing the scope. The council's survey-plan specification is a useful starting point for your architect, designer and surveyor to review together.

City of Sydney is one council within Greater Sydney. Check which council covers the property: the same document should not be treated as the requirements for every Sydney suburb. SurveyWorx's Sydney-wide coverage directory can help you describe your location when enquiring.

Start with the council's current documents

Open the City of Sydney survey-plan specifications page and its linked specification. The council also provides guidance on documents for a planning application. That guidance explains that the required material varies with the proposal.

Send the relevant links, checklist and any written request from your project team with your enquiry. Identify the version or date of the material you are using. Ask your designer to clarify any difference between an earlier brief and the current application requirements before the survey is commissioned.

Flag work close to a boundary

The council's published survey-plan summary identifies work within one metre of a boundary as requiring a survey plan, title search and deposited plan. It also refers to proposals affecting party-wall loads, fences or landscape structures. Ask your project adviser how the published requirements apply to the actual works you are proposing.

Tell the surveyor about boundary-dependent design decisions at the start. A request for existing features and levels should not be assumed to include every boundary investigation or marking task. Our boundary and detail survey comparison explains the different questions to raise.

Prepare a brief your project team can use

Before requesting a quote, gather:

• The property location and a short explanation of the proposed work.
• The current design drawings and their revision details.
• The council specification and any project-specific written survey request.
• Available title, deposited-plan and previous-survey information for review.
• The features, levels and adjoining information your designer has requested.
• Access restrictions and the person arranging the site visit.
• The receiving professional, agreed file formats and requested delivery date.

Ask what is included in the proposed survey and which records or additional work are separate. Your project team should confirm whether an older plan is suitable for this application rather than assume it can be reused unchanged.

Agree the next step before booking

Discuss the information needed for the detail and contour survey and who will check it against the application requirements. Survey preparation, design decisions and council assessment have different responsibilities; commissioning a survey does not guarantee development consent.

This checklist was checked against the linked council guidance on 5 November 2026. Recheck the current documents for your application. Send SurveyWorx your location, drawings and written requirements to discuss the appropriate survey scope.