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SARA (State Assessment and Referral Agency)

SARA is the Queensland single point for state-interest referrals (state roads, heritage, vegetation, coastal) on a DA, adding a statutory referral stage.

By Dan Waring. Last updated 4 June 2026. Verified 4 June 2026.

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SARA, the State Assessment and Referral Agency, is Queensland’s single point of entry for state-interest referrals on a development application. When a proposal triggers a state interest (a state-controlled road, heritage, protected vegetation, coastal management, and the like), the DA must go to SARA, which adds a statutory referral stage to the assessment.

The point of SARA is to give one front door for the many state agencies that might otherwise each need to be consulted. Instead of a developer chasing several departments, SARA coordinates the state’s response as the single state referral agency.

How it bites on a timeline:

  • A DA that triggers a state interest cannot simply be decided by the council (assessment manager); it must be referred to SARA.
  • SARA’s referral runs on its own statutory clock (commonly around a 25-business-day assessment, longer if it asks for more information), which sits inside the overall DA timeframe.
  • SARA can be a concurrence agency (its conditions or refusal bind) or advice agency depending on the trigger.

For a builder the practical points are to check early whether a site triggers a SARA referral, because the state-interest triggers (frontage to a state road, a mapped environmental or heritage value, coastal proximity) are easy to miss and they add real weeks. If a referral is unavoidable, address the state interest in the application up front (a traffic response for a state road, an ecology report for vegetation) so SARA’s referral comes back with workable conditions rather than a request for more information or a refusal. SARA referral triggers are a common cause of Queensland DA delays.

Also known as: State Assessment and Referral Agency, the state referral agency (QLD).

Category: Planning / Queensland.

See also

References

Last updated: 2026-06-04. Verified: 2026-06-04. Quarterly review for currency.

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