Camden Council — Development Application Data
Camden Council processed 3026 development applications in the past year from a total dataset of 8235 since 2021, with a median assessment time of 58 days. The council's 2.72% Clause 4.6 variation rate sits well below the Sydney metropolitan average, signalling strict adherence to development standards for height, FSR and setbacks. The most common refusal ground is insufficient information from applicants, cited in 132 refusals, followed closely by public interest concerns under s4.15(1)(e) and site unsuitability. Applications span a broad cost spectrum: 3041 fall under $100,000, while 331 exceed $5 million, with Other development dominating at 6200 applications, then subdivision at 661 and alterations at 503. Streetscape and neighbourhood character incompatibility appears in 65 refusals, alongside 56 citing stormwater, drainage or flooding issues. A Plan Advice AI assessment for your Camden Council property runs in seconds and identifies these risks before you lodge.
Determination outcomes
Real approval, refusal and withdrawal rates from finalised DAs in the Plan Advice enriched corpus.
Based on the 98.1% of DAs in our Camden Council corpus with a confirmed determination. Applications still under assessment, and any whose outcome the council has not published, are excluded rather than estimated.
Why DAs get refused in Camden Council
Grounds cited across 176 refused applications, read from the council's own notices of determination. Most recent determination indexed: August 2026. Most refusals cite several grounds at once, so these overlap.
Behind each ground above sits the verbatim paragraph the assessing officer wrote, the LEP and DCP clauses it was tested against, and the address and DA number so you can pull the notice yourself. 1,127 grounds across Camden Council are indexed this way.
See the grounds in fullConditions you should expect
Approval is not the finish line — every consent arrives with conditions. This is what Camden Council actually imposes, measured from the consent notices it has published.
Conditions marked costs money are the ones to budget for — contributions, bonds, specialist reports and public-domain works.
| 91% | Appoint a principal certifier | |
| 75% | Survey certificate at set-outCOSTS MONEY | |
| 59% | Section 7.11 developer contributionsCOSTS MONEY | |
| 58% | Vehicular crossing, footpath and kerb worksCOSTS MONEY | |
| 52% | Sydney Water approval (Section 73)COSTS MONEY | |
| 50% | Construction certificate before works start | |
| 47% | Asbestos / hazardous materials handling | |
| 46% | Waste management plan | |
| 46% | Erosion and sediment control | |
| 45% | Construction management plan | |
| 45% | Construction traffic management | |
| 40% | Tree protection and arborist supervisionCOSTS MONEY |
Based on 3,110 approvals with a published notice of determination · 5 of the conditions above carry a cost. A condition on most approvals is effectively standard; it is not a guarantee of what any individual consent will say.
Development type mix
What people are building in Camden Council. Ranked by DA volume.
Development cost distribution
Estimated development cost ranges reported on Camden Council DAs.
Camden Council DAs — common questions
Answered from this council's own determinations. Where a council has not published a figure, the question is left out rather than guessed.
How many development applications does Camden Council handle?
Plan Advice holds 8,352 development applications for Camden Council, 3,067 of them lodged in the last 12 months. The figures on this page are counted from that register, not estimated.
How long does a DA take in Camden Council?
The median assessment time is 58 days for FY25-26, after a median 8 days to get the application accepted for lodgement. That is the council's own reported figure from the NSW Planning Portal league tables, so it covers every DA they determined — not a sample.
What share of DAs does Camden Council approve?
89.4% of the 6,663 determined applications we hold were approved and 3.9% were refused. We can read a determination for 98.1% of this council's DAs; the rest are counted as unknown rather than assumed approved.
Why are DAs refused in Camden Council?
Across 176 refused applications, the grounds cited most often are insufficient information submitted by applicant (135 refusals), contrary to the public interest (s4.15(1)(e)) (136 refusals), site not suitable for the development (s4.15(1)(c)) (128 refusals). These are read from the council's own notices of determination, and most refusals cite several grounds at once.
What kinds of development are most common in Camden Council?
The most frequent application types are subdivision (671), alterations & additions (504), dual occupancy (349).
How often is a clause 4.6 variation used in Camden Council?
226 applications — 2.71% of the register — sought a clause 4.6 variation to a development standard.
Most recent development applications
Sampled from the NSW Planning Portal open-data feed.
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