Perth Councils and Developers Scramble to Fix Duplicate Image Problem Flooding Planning Portals This Week

Planning offices from Stirling to Rockingham spent much of this week wading through a backlog of development applications riddled with duplicate photographs — the same site image submitted multiple times, in some cases dozens of times, within a single lodgement package. The problem, which appears to have accelerated since late June, is forcing assessment officers to manually identify and remove replicated files before applications can be properly evaluated, adding days to already stretched timelines.

The timing is painful. Western Australia's housing sector is operating under acute pressure, with the State Government's Metronet corridor unlocking land around stations including Morley, Ellenbrook and Yanchep that developers are rushing to activate. Any friction in the approvals pipeline feeds directly into project delays and, ultimately, dwelling supply shortfalls in a market where median house prices in Perth's northern suburbs have climbed sharply over the past two years.

Where the Problem Is Hitting Hardest

The City of Stirling's development services team, which handles one of the busiest application volumes in metropolitan Perth, confirmed this week that it had identified a pattern of duplicate images across multiple recent lodgements. The issue appears connected to how some applicants are exporting documentation from certain property and planning software platforms before uploading to the state's Development Assessment Panels online system. When export functions are run multiple times, or when file compression tools loop incorrectly, identical images are bundled repeatedly into a single PDF or ZIP package without the applicant realising.

The City of Fremantle's planning portal has also seen a cluster of affected applications over the past fortnight, according to council documents tabled at a planning committee meeting on July 2. Officers there noted that three separate applications for infill housing projects in the White Gum Valley and Beaconsfield areas had to be returned to applicants for resubmission, pushing assessment clocks back to zero on each.

Private planning consultancies operating out of the West Perth professional precinct along Hay Street have begun circulating informal advice to their teams — double-checking export logs and using duplicate-detection software before lodgement. The West Australian Planning Commission's online lodgement portal does not currently flag duplicate files automatically at the point of upload, meaning the burden of detection falls entirely on council staff after submission.

Why This Week's Developments Matter for the Broader Pipeline

Western Australia's construction industry is already contending with a pronounced approvals lag. According to the Housing Industry Association's most recent WA data, the average time from development application to first sod has stretched in the Perth metropolitan area, compounding problems for builders trying to lock in trade schedules. Adding even three to five days per application across dozens of lodgements each month compounds into a meaningful drag on the overall pipeline.

The duplicate image issue is not a new phenomenon, but planning officers say the volume appears to have spiked since a widely used property documentation platform pushed a software update in mid-June. Several planning firms that use the platform reported that its batch-export function began inserting additional image copies into output files. The platform has not made a public statement on the matter, and The Daily Perth was unable to confirm the precise cause from publicly available documents by deadline.

For applicants with live projects sitting in the queue, the practical advice circulating among Perth planning professionals this week is straightforward: before lodging any application, open the final PDF package and manually scroll through every image page to check for repetition. If using a ZIP file, run a free duplicate-finder tool — several are available without cost — against the image folder before compressing. Resubmitting a clean application the first time around avoids the return-to-applicant process entirely, which at the City of Stirling currently resets the statutory clock to day one of a 60-day assessment period.

The West Australian Planning Commission is understood to be reviewing whether an automated duplicate-detection function can be added to the state's lodgement portal, though no implementation date has been announced. For now, the fix is manual, the responsibility is on the applicant, and in a market where every week of delay carries a real dollar cost, Perth's planning community is learning that a few extra minutes of document hygiene can save months of waiting.