On July 1, 2024, we launched pre-lodgement meetings as a new service through the Development Portal, with a view to trialling these meetings to better support our customers in providing early technical advice.
Since July, we’ve received 23 requests for these meetings. We sought feedback from the participants of these meetings and the insights have shown that outcomes have been varied.
To ensure we're providing the best value for both our industry partners and Unitywater, we're taking time to review the value and design our pre-lodgement services. We are therefore taking the step to temporarily pause the ability to request pre-lodgement meetings until we are satisfied that customers will be able to achieve what they want from these meetings and outcomes are more consistent.
From Thursday, 12 December 2024, you will no longer be able to select a pre-lodgement meeting request from the Portal.
Please note that the ability to request pre-lodgement advice notices and technical report reviews is still available, it is only the meetings that are being paused during the review.
We encourage you to continue to utilise the pre-lodgement application via the Development Portal to enquire about technical aspects related to your proposed development. Please ensure your application includes a relevant level of detail and clear questions to help us provide you with a comprehensive response.
We'll provide an update on this review during February 2025. Please reach out to the team via developmentportalsupport@unitywater.com if you have questions. Thank you for your understanding.
It’s hard to believe we are so close to the end of the year and 2025, but here we are.
This update is to inform you of Unitywater’s application cut-off dates for live connections, as well as our holiday closure information.
Private Works
- Private Works will be closed from close of business (COB) Friday, 20 December, returning on Monday, 6 January 2025.
- To ensure all work can be scheduled and commitments delivered to our customers, we require all live works applications (must be properly made) to be lodged by Sunday, 1 December, 2024. Any applications submitted after this date will not be scheduled for live connections in 2024.
- Any new applications for live water connections received from Monday 2 December will not be accepted or scheduled, and you will be advised to resubmit with valid water quality bacteriological tests (bactos) results after 6 January 2025.
- A reminder, bactos are only valid for 10 days from the date they are taken, with results taking on average 4-5 days to be processed.
- To ensure a smooth experience for everyone, please note these dates and plan accordingly. We are unable to fulfill last minute requests. Thank you for your understanding.
Development Services
- All Unitywater offices will be closed from COB Tuesday, 24 December 2024, reopening on Thursday, 2 January.
- Many of our team members will be taking a well-deserved break during this closure period.
- Any enquiries during the closure period should be submitted through the Development Portal.
Unitywater is committed to facilitating the delivery of homes for Queenslanders. Please be assured we will still have team members processing applications in December and January and will where possible work to our advertised application processing times.
The last Development Services newsletter will be issued in early December, so keep an eye out for that in your inboxes.
Kind regards,
Ashley Radbourne
Development Services Manager
Please be reminded that in accordance with Clause 22 Insurance of the Accreditation Deed between each Accredited Entity and Unitywater, your company must maintain the specified insurances and provide copies of these insurance policies to Unitywater. This includes providing copies to Unitywater upon renewal of each of those insurances.
Please review your Accreditation Deed, including Clause 22 and respective Schedules for further information.
To maintain compliance, you must provide evidence of each policy that has renewed and has not been presented to Unitywater for our records by 31 October 2024 to align with Unitywater’s renewal of Accreditation Deeds for each Accredited Entity.
Each Accredited Entity will receive an email reminder prior to the due date, however, please contact us at accreditation.coordinator@unitywater.com if you have any questions.
Thank you for your enthusiasm and patience over the past four weeks. During this time, Unitywater has launched the much-anticipated Development Portal and provided continuous support to the development industry through this transition. As a valued stakeholder, we are seeking to gather your feedback on your user experience over these past few weeks.
We are constantly striving to enhance our services through streamlined processes and the provision of improved resources for our industry stakeholders.
Your insights are crucial in helping us to evaluate the portal’s effectiveness and identify any areas for improvement.
Please take a few moments to complete the survey here. Your responses will be used solely to enhance the portal to better serve you.
We get emails, phone calls, teams messages left, right and centre asking for updates on submissions – and people don’t always get responses, we know we need to do better, and the portal will help.
Going forward, we encourage you to follow up on your applications using our new online follow up form.
This form will provide a line of sight for follow-ups, it will provide insights on volumes, themes, and responsiveness – help us to help you.
We also encourage you to wait before you follow-up, if the application is within the published processing times – please hold tight, if it’s close or it’s gone over then submit the form and we’ll get you an update.
On Monday 15 July, the Unitywater Development Portal is set to Go Live! So that you are supported and have the opportunity to proactively get ready, we are offering a number of opportunities to ensure that external stakeholders are prepared and feel confident to use the portal.
The Development Services (DS) team has taken a collaborative and considered approach to deliver an online application solution for the development industry and it is now time to present more details on what to expect and how to transition to the online portal and some of the functionality to look forward to.
Industry Briefing sessions in May
With the implementation of an online system, there are inevitably some process adjustments, and we want to ensure the development industry is fully informed and has time to prepare. We are holding briefing sessions in May where Unitywater will walk through the key updates that will accompany the Development Portal launch.
Three industry briefing sessions (noted below) will be hosted online with the same content delivered in each session. These three options will hopefully assist in meeting most people’s availability.
- Tuesday 14 May, 9am - 10am
- Thursday 16 May, 12 - 1pm
- Tuesday 21 May, 4 - 5pm
To attend one of these sessions, register here. We look forward to seeing you online.
‘Lunch and Learn’ online sessions late June- early July
We’ve listened to your survey and focus group feedback and created a learning program to support building your knowledge and adoption of the new portal. As we edge closer to the launch of the portal we are engaging via a ‘Lunch and Learn’ approach in more active learning methods which encourages people to learn through group discussions, practice through doing and teaching others.
Our ‘Lunch and Learn’ sessions are designed to give people experience in the functionality of the portal and take a step-by-step guided approach.
We understand that every portal user will have specific needs and questions and so we have formatted training based on the different user groups such as construction certifiers, developers, consulting engineers, major/minor certifiers and administration staff.
These 30-minute online training sessions will be delivered over a two-week period from 24 June – 5 July. Further information will be provided shortly on how to register for these sessions.
Learning resources
A suite of quick reference guides (PDF documents) and videos noting step-by-step portal instructions will also be made available to you shortly. Stay tuned for further details on how to access these handy resources.
We're still reviewing Unitywater's position on this matter and taking the time to decide the best way forward.
We plan to give you a detailed update in the coming weeks as we make progress. In the meantime, please join discussions regarding this topic in the forum section of this collaboration hub. Your feedback/suggestions are important to us as we move forward.
As a reminder, here are the guidelines for now:
- Completed construction work will be accepted as is for temporary ends of mains.
- If you're still in the design phase, please adjust to ensure temporary ends of mains don't extend more than two meters from the last water service. This aligns with permanent ends of mains and is considered best practice.
- Projects with pending applications or approved designs scheduled for construction before June 30, 2024, can proceed unchanged.
If you have any questions or need help with specific situations, use the ask a question function on this page in the first instance.
Thank you for your patience and cooperation while we work through this.
An email to all certifiers will be sent week commencing 7 May providing this update.
Development Services recently received communication from our Standards team of some revision to water drawings in the code.
We wanted to share through this channel as an extra communication opportunity, understanding anyone on IPAM mailing list should receive an update directly.
There are some new revisions of the SEQ Code water drawings now available on the SEQ Code website: https://www.seqcode.com.au/seq-water-supply-code
They are broken into 4 sets as follows:
The revised drawings will apply from 30 April 2024 for new designs. In flight projects may continue to use the existing drawings.
What this means for Unitywater drawings:
Unitywater drawings SEQ-WAT-1108-4 and SEQ-WAT-1108-5 large meters will be withdrawn and become obsolete after 30 April 2024.
The new revision of SEQ-WSA03 Water Code (version 1.4) will be released on the WSAA site next week. The SEQ-WSA03 and the drawings will be used in conjunction with each other.
In addition, we receive feedback often about the SEQ Code, we've added this as a feedback theme on the feedback tool. We encourage you to share feedback, improvement suggestions to the code - this feedback will funnel through to our Standards Team who can assist in driving changes as required.
In December 2023, Unitywater updated industry that temporary dead-end water mains exceeding two metres would no longer be accepted by Unitywater and that remedial works were required. The Development Services team has listened to the industry feedback and until further notice has relaxed the need for rectification of temporary dead end water mains. Unitywater understands that developers may be frustrated by this decision, but this was an important issue to address and learn from.
Over the next few weeks, Unitywater will be working with their water quality team, and using feedback from industry to determine the way forward for temporary dead-end water mains to ensure the best outcome for Unitywater and industry.
Unitywater welcomes feedback on this matter from industry through their new development services feedback tool.
A further communication on temporary dead-end water mains will be shared by Unitywater in late April 2024.
