Zoned land: development and land use complaints

A complaint may be made about another person or party who has failed to follow the Planning Act 1999.

This includes the:

• Northern Territory (NT) Planning Scheme
• zoning laws
• development permit and conditions or
• endorsed plans.

As a result of your complaint, there may be further legal action against the other party by the Development Consent Authority or the Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics.

Confidentiality when making a complaint

If you make a complaint, your identity will be kept confidential unless:

• it’s necessary to investigate the matter
• you give written permission to disclose your identity
• your identity has already been disclosed:
  • to the complainant or
  • in a public document
• it’s required under the Information Act 2002
• it's required to follow procedural fairness
• the matter proceeds to court.

How to complain

You must make the complaint in writing by filling in the section 78 planning complaints form.

Section 78 planning complaints form PDF (175.2 KB)
Section 78 planning complaints form DOCX (66.1 KB)

Once completed, submit the form to Development Assessment Services by email or mail to:

Compliance and Enforcement team
Development Assessment Services
GPO Box 1680
Darwin NT 0801
planning.complaints@nt.gov.au

After you submit your complaint

Your complaint will be investigated by the department's compliance team.

The compliance team conducts inspections of approved projects, responds to reports and complaints, investigates potential breaches and carries out enforcement action.

If the complaint is about a breach of the law, the compliance team may negotiate an outcome between parties, send warning letters, send penalty notices or take legal action.

If the court finds the person or party has gone against the law, it may issue a fine and order work done to fix the breach of the law.