DA Finder

Development applications, in your pocket. DA Finder helps the ACT community discover, follow and hear about development activity near them — designed, built and continuously improved by Stripy Sock since 2014.

Ever wondered what’s planned for that empty block around the corner? DA Finder puts the ACT’s development applications in your pocket — browse what’s proposed near you, follow the applications you care about, and hear the moment something changes.

What it does

• Browse every current application across the ACT, with richer detail than ever thanks to improved data sources.
• See what’s happening nearby — applications close to your location, so the answer to “what’s that going to be?” is a tap away.
• Play favourites — keep a shortlist of the applications you’re watching.
• Stay in the loop — get a notification the moment a followed application is updated.

Behind the app

When the ACT Government’s planning team came to us in 2014, development applications were published in print and on the web, as legislation required. The interesting question wasn’t how to squeeze the website into an app — it was what a phone could do that paper never could. The answers became the heart of DA Finder: location, favourites and push notifications, turning public information into a personalised experience.

Under the hood, Google’s Firebase platform sits between the government data source and the apps. It caches and standardises the data, manages each user’s favourites, and processes update notifications — giving the iOS and Android apps one consistent backbone while each stays fully native, following its own platform’s conventions and presenting government information clearly and accessibly.

Twelve years later, we still look after DA Finder. Version 4.0 shipped in early 2026 for both platforms, with a streamlined interface, improved search and richer application information. That’s how we like to work: launch something genuinely useful, then keep making it better as systems, data and expectations evolve.