Brisbane councils and construction firms scramble to fix duplicate image problem in digital planning records this week

Planning officers across Southeast Queensland are working through a backlog of development applications this week after a systematic problem with duplicate image uploads was identified in the state's online DA lodgement portals. The issue, which affects both Brisbane City Council's PD Online system and the Queensland Government's MyDAS2 platform, has resulted in some application files carrying multiple copies of the same site photograph or architectural rendering, inflating file sizes and triggering automated rejection notices that stall assessment timelines.

The timing matters. The LNP state government is under pressure to accelerate planning approvals ahead of 2032 Olympic infrastructure deadlines, and Southeast Queensland is absorbing one of the fastest population surges in the country as migrants from New South Wales and Victoria continue arriving in volume. Any friction in the development pipeline hits hardest in the growth corridors — precisely the Logan Central and Ripley Valley precincts where housing approvals are most urgently needed right now.

Where the problem is hitting hardest

In Logan, a number of residential subdivision applications lodged through the council's online portal in late June have been caught in the duplication loop, according to planning consultants working in the area. The Ripley Valley Priority Development Area, administered by Economic Development Queensland out of its Brisbane CBD offices on George Street, is similarly affected, with several precinct plan amendments queued behind the image-related processing errors. Ipswich City Council confirmed this week that its development assessment team is aware of the issue and is working with applicants to resubmit corrected files, though it did not put a number on how many applications are affected.

At the Brisbane end, inner-city projects lodged with Brisbane City Council — including several mixed-use proposals near the Gabba precinct, where the Olympic stadium rebuild is reshaping surrounding land use — have also been caught. The council's Planning and Development Online system, which processed more than 14,000 applications in the 2024–25 financial year according to Brisbane City Council's published annual report, relies on applicants uploading images within a strict file-size ceiling. When duplicates push a submission over that ceiling, the system flags the file as non-compliant without always specifying the cause clearly.

What applicants are being told to do

Planning consultants and private certifiers around Fortitude Valley and South Brisbane say the practical fix is straightforward: audit every image file in a submission package before lodgement, strip duplicate layers from PDFs using file-compression software, and ensure each photograph or plan sheet appears exactly once. For applications already in the system with the error flagged, applicants are being asked to withdraw and re-lodge the affected documents rather than attempt an amendment in place — a step that resets some assessment clock timers.

Economic Development Queensland updated its applicant guidance notes on July 2, flagging the duplicate-image issue explicitly and recommending applicants use the agency's pre-lodgement meeting service — free for Priority Development Area projects — before submitting any package larger than 50 megabytes. Brisbane City Council's development services team is directing affected applicants to its Planning and Development Online helpdesk at 107 Creek Street in the CBD.

The broader lesson sits in the infrastructure behind the platforms. Both PD Online and MyDAS2 were built during an era when most development applications arrived on paper or as small PDF files. High-resolution drone photography, 3D modelling exports and large-format architectural renders have dramatically increased average submission sizes over the past three years, and neither system has been fully upgraded to handle the load. State budget documents tabled in June 2026 allocated $4.8 million toward a digital planning systems upgrade across the Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works, though the rollout schedule has not been publicly confirmed.

For applicants with time-sensitive projects — particularly those tied to Olympic precinct deadlines or the South East Queensland Regional Plan housing targets — the advice from planning offices this week is not to wait for a system fix. Audit the file, strip the duplicates, re-lodge promptly, and request a pre-lodgement consultation if the project is large enough to qualify. The platform problem may be temporary, but missed deadlines in a pressured approval environment tend not to be.