Where we are up to
1 October 2026.
| Piece | State | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| The report design | First draft | Fourteen pages, built on a real Canberra block with real numbers. Read it and mark it up — the words, the order, what is missing. |
| The block lookup | Working | An address in; block, section, suburb, area, zone, easements and overlays out, from the ACT cadastre. |
| The numbers | Working | Site coverage, open space and the secondary residence cap, worked out in square metres for the actual block, each carrying its clause. |
| The drawings | Two of thirteen | The block to scale with every boundary measured, and the buildable envelope. The other eleven are still drawn by hand. |
| Address in, report out | Next | Today the example block is fixed on the page. Next it takes any ACT address. |
| A page per customer | After that | Needs a login first: this site is public, so no customer goes on it until it has one. |
| A signed rule | Blocked | No rule in the register has been approved by a planner, so nothing can yet be presented to a customer as confirmed. |
Why it exists
Three reasons, in the order they matter.
1. It is the answer a customer actually wants
Someone standing in their back yard has one question: what can I build here, and how big? Everything else follows from that. The faster and more honestly it is answered, the more likely that conversation continues.
2. It is how a lead becomes a customer
The report is not a giveaway. It is the reason a homeowner books a planning assessment meeting, and the meeting is where the design and the price are agreed. A report that arrives in minutes rather than a week keeps that person interested.
3. Doing it by hand does not scale, and it drifts
Ninety reports a year can be assembled by hand. Two thousand cannot. And a hand-assembled report carries whatever the writer knew on the day — when a rule changes, every report already issued is quietly out of date and nobody knows which ones.
The one rule
Where something needs judgement, or the information is missing, it says so and offers a meeting. It never guesses, it never rounds a legal number, and it never fills a gap with something plausible.
This is the rule from Frank's specification, GCONS document 3333, and it is the reason the application is worth building rather than dangerous. A wrong number in a planning report is worse than no number: the customer designs around it, spends money, and finds out at the development application.
In practice that means a report from this system has three kinds of statement, and you can always tell which you are reading: an answer with its clause, something that needs a person, and something nobody can answer yet.
What it replaces
The current report is DID964, a Word template, produced by the DID963 procedure.
| Today | With this |
|---|---|
| One person, several hours, per customer | Minutes, from the address |
| 40-plus pages, with six pages of general ACT planning background before the customer's own answer | The answer on page 3; the rule tables moved to the back |
| Percentages — "site coverage 40%" | Square metres for that block — "364.8 m²" |
| Figures typed from websites by hand | Read from the ACT cadastre and the rule register, each carrying its clause |
| Goes out of date silently when a rule changes | Correct the rule once and every future report is right |
| A PDF, emailed | A PDF and the customer's own page, from one source |
Where the information comes from
Nothing here is typed in by hand, and nothing is invented.
| What | Source |
|---|---|
| Block, section, suburb, area, zone, easements, overlays | The ACT Government cadastre |
| The boundary drawing and the buildable envelope | Calculated from the cadastre's own coordinates, in metres |
| Which boundary is the front, the side, the rear | Measured against the ACT road centrelines |
| Every planning figure | CGFB's planning rule register — 818 rules and 125 elements read from the ACT instruments, each carrying the clause it came from |
| Contours, heritage, plumbing ties | ACTMapi, the ACT Heritage Register, the Access Canberra public register |
What it will not do
- Give planning advice. It is an assessment of likelihood, not an approval, and it says so on every copy.
- Print a figure a planner has not signed. Today that means the front boundary setback on every block — see below.
- Answer a question about judgement. Whether a design suits a streetscape is an assessment outcome, and the report names it as requiring assessment rather than answering it.
- Replace the meeting. It is the agenda for it.
What it is waiting on
Honestly, because a purpose page that only describes the good version stops being measured.
| Waiting on | Until then |
|---|---|
| A planner other than Frank who can sign a rule | No rule in the register is approved, so nothing can be presented as confirmed |
| The report appendix re-read against the 2026 instruments | The template still quotes the 2023 specifications, which were renumbered on 1 July 2026 |
| Checking the output against reports a person wrote and signed | There are hundreds in GCONS; the comparison has not been run |
| Subdivision and unit title rules | Both are answered "not yet" on every report |
How it is built
| Piece | Where |
|---|---|
| This application | Its own site, its own address, nothing tied to GCONS |
| The rules, the questions and the sections | The Planning Rules register, where planners work |
| The block facts | Read live from the ACT Government |
| The PDF and the web page | One source, two outputs. They cannot disagree |
The specification is GCONS document 3333, Replacing the PAR Process, 12 September 2026, which sets the first customer report for December.
How we work on it
| Frank | Claude |
|---|---|
| Decides what the report says and in what order. Marks up the draft. Answers the questions only he can answer. | Builds it, finds the sources, does the reading, and says plainly when something cannot be answered. |
Where the pieces live
| This site | The report itself, and this page. Its own address, nothing tied to GCONS. |
|---|---|
| Planning Rules | The rules, the questions and the sixteen report sections — where planners work and sign. |
| GCONS | The specification (document 3333), the current template DID964 and the procedure DID963 that produces it today. |