The South Australian planning reforms commenced with the introduction of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (the PDI Act) that replaced the Development Act 1993.

The State Planning Commission and the (former) Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) prepared a single set of planning ‘rules’ for assessing development applications across the state, known as the Planning and Design Code.

The Code contains the policies that guide what can be developed in South Australia. Planning authorities (councils, private certifiers, state government, CAPs etc) use these planning rules to assess development proposals.

A key component of the planning reforms was the conversion and retirement of council Development Plans as the Code came into effect as of 19 March 2021.