Introducing the Intelligence Brief: One Address, One Answer

When we wrote From Three Tools to One Answer earlier this year, the "one answer" part was a direction. It's now the product. The Intelligence Brief takes a Greater Sydney address and returns a single document, in about a minute, covering the two things every property decision runs on: the rules that apply to the site, and the physical facts of the site itself.

Why an answer, not a toolbox

Property research tools mostly hand you data and leave the assembly to you. You look up the zoning in one place, the flood mapping in another, the DCP controls in a 500-page PDF, and recent applications on the Planning Portal — then you reconcile it all by hand. The assembly is the work. It's also where things get missed.

The Brief does the assembly. One address in, one document out. The tools that made PlotDetect useful — Scout for the map, Verify for the exact provisions, Validate for approval activity — haven't gone anywhere. They're the workbench behind the Brief, for when one question needs real depth. But you shouldn't have to know which tool to open before you've seen the picture.

What the Brief covers

The Brief assembles nine kinds of answer for an address:

• Planning controls — zone, height, floor-space ratio and minimum lot size, pulled live from the NSW Planning Portal when the Brief runs.
• Council DCP controls — setbacks, parking, landscaping and similar numeric controls, cited to the clause and page of the council document they came from, where structured coverage exists.
• State policy eligibility — Housing SEPP, transport-oriented development and low-and-mid-rise pathways checked against the address.
• Constraints and hazards — flood, bushfire, heritage, acid sulfate and other overlays.
• Property economics — land value from the NSW Valuer General and sales context.
• Title and strata status — whether the lot is strata or Torrens, which changes the questions worth asking.
• Neighbourhood activity — nearby development applications and their status.
• Development capacity — which control actually binds the site, worked through as arithmetic rather than vibes.
• The site from above — structures, vegetation, solar and overshadowing context read from satellite imagery, not assumed from a form.

Two kinds of honesty

A synthesised answer is only worth something if you can check it. Two design rules carry over from everything we've written about how Verify was built:

Every claim carries its source. A setback figure links to the clause and page of the council document it came from. A zoning value records that it came from the Planning Portal, and when. Nothing in the Brief asks to be taken on trust.

Gaps are stated, not papered over. Coverage is layered and the Brief says so. Every NSW address gets the statewide layer — zoning, standards, SEPP and hazard checks from live government data. The hand-built council layer runs across metropolitan Sydney, from the established inner and north-shore councils to the western growth corridors, and deepens council by council. Where a source isn't available for your address, the Brief tells you that, rather than filling the gap with a guess.

Reports: the same engine, packaged for a job

Some questions don't need the whole picture — they need one answer, formatted for one decision. So the same engine behind the Brief also produces packaged reports: the Conveyancer report for pre-exchange due diligence, plus flood screening, bushfire status, solar potential, granny-flat feasibility, overshadowing analysis and development monitoring. And for homeowners who just want to know what's possible on their block, the same engine answers in consumer terms at canibuildit.com.au.

That's the shape of PlotDetect now: the Brief is the front door, the tools are the workbench, and the reports are the packaged outputs. One engine, three ways to consume it.