The Victorian Planning Rules That Decide What You Can Build

What you can build on a Victorian block gets settled well before anyone draws a floor plan, by the zone, the canopy trees, council's demolition consent, the soil and any flood overlay. Most of that is statewide, so it reads the same in Berwick as it does in Balwyn. The part that changes between councils is narrower than owners expect: local tree laws, heritage and neighbourhood character controls and the four things a council can still vary in its own zone schedule.

What the zone allows without a planning permit

In the General Residential Zone and the Neighbourhood Residential Zone, a single new house needs a planning permit from the zone itself only on a lot under 300 square metres. Amendment VC282 set that threshold on 8 September 2025, at clauses 32.08-5 and 32.09-5. Above 300 square metres an overlay can still send you to council and so can removing a tree, which is why the address matters more than the zone name.

The General Residential Zone runs to a default 11 metres and 3 storeys, the Neighbourhood Residential Zone to a default 9 metres and 2 storeys. Where the ground slopes more than 2.5 degrees, both gain a metre. A basement does not count as a storey. Since VC282 a council schedule can vary only four things: street setback, site coverage, private open space and the front fence.

Garden area is the share of the block that has to stay unbuilt.

A planning application picks garden area up through the zone at clause 32.08-4 or 32.09-4. A house that needs no planning permit picks it up through regulation 76A of the Building Regulations 2018, where the building surveyor checks it before issuing the building permit. Skipping planning does not skip garden area, so we size the footprint against the percentage at concept stage on every custom home. A plan trimmed later to hit the percentage usually loses the room you wanted most.

Canopy trees under clause 52.37, then your council's local law

Clause 52.37 came into every Victorian planning scheme on 15 September 2025 under Amendment VC289. It protects a canopy tree, defined as one over 5 metres tall, with a trunk over 0.5 metres around measured at 1.4 metres from the ground and a canopy at least 4 metres across. Removing, destroying or lopping one needs a planning permit in the Mixed Use, Township, Residential Growth, General Residential, Neighbourhood Residential and Housing Choice and Transport zones, as a VicSmart class of application.

While an existing dwelling still stands, the clause reaches only boundary canopy trees: a trunk within 6 metres of the narrowest street frontage or within 4.5 metres of the rear boundary. Once the house is gone it covers the whole block, so tree position belongs in the demolition program well before anyone talks about landscaping.

Council tree laws sit on top of that clause.

• Glen Eira runs a Canopy Tree Protection Local Law, pitched at a tree over 5 metres tall with a trunk 140 cm or more around measured at 140 cm. A permit also covers works in the tree protection zone, including a neighbour's tree that reaches over the boundary, which needs the tree owner's consent. Minor pruning stays exempt up to 10 per cent of the tree's volume in any 12 months, on branches under 100 mm around, carried out to AS 4373. That local law covers custom home builds in Bentleigh and Bentleigh East along with custom home builds in Caulfield and Caulfield North.
• Boroondara's Tree Protection Local Law 2024 measures off a trunk 110 cm or more around at 1.4 metres or 150 cm or more at ground level. You need a permit even for a dead tree or a weed species and for works within 2 metres of the trunk. Anyone weighing custom home builds in Balwyn and Balwyn North is inside it.
• Casey has no local law for trees on private land, so on a custom home build in Berwick clause 52.37 and any overlay on the title do the whole job.

Where a local law and the planning scheme both apply to the same tree, the planning permit is the one you apply for.

Demolition: the consent that holds up your building permit

Demolition always needs a building permit. The building surveyor cannot issue it until council gives its report and consent under section 29A of the Building Act 1993. Two triggers bring that in: taking any part of the street facade or taking more than half the volume of the building over any 3 years. Regulation 34(2) of the Building Regulations 2018 gives council 15 business days, and silence counts as consent. Council can refuse only where the demolition needs a planning permit you do not have.

A Heritage Overlay or a Neighbourhood Character Overlay is what creates that permit requirement: on land carrying either one you need a permit to demolish, plus usually a second one to build the replacement, under clauses 43.01 and 43.05. The overlay check decides whether demolition is a consent request or a full planning application.

WorkSafe requires asbestos to be identified and, so far as reasonably practicable, removed before demolition, with licensed removal for anything beyond a small quantity of non-friable material. asbestos.vic.gov.au puts a home built before the mid-1980s as highly likely to contain asbestos products, one from the mid-1980s to 1990 as likely and one built after 1990 as unlikely. We run the 29A consent, the asbestos assessment and the tree position as one sequence on every knockdown rebuild, including each knockdown rebuild in Mulgrave, because between them those three set the demolition date.

What a soil classification actually tells you

AS 2870 classes a reactive site as S, M, H1, H2 or E, ordered by how far the ground moves as it takes up and gives off moisture. Class P sits outside that scale rather than higher up it. It marks a problem site, triggered by uncontrolled fill, soft ground or trees, so something on the block needs dealing with before a standard footing design applies.

With a house still standing, an engineer can only test the open ground around it, which is rarely where the new slab goes. A knockdown rebuild usually needs a retest once the block is clear, and a footing design set from the first test can change when the second comes back.

Flood overlays set your floor level, then your height

In a Special Building Overlay or a Land Subject to Inundation Overlay, a new house needs a planning permit and the application goes to the floodplain authority, which across metropolitan Melbourne is Melbourne Water, unless you lodge its written approval with the application. The authority sets a minimum floor level: the 1 per cent flood level plus freeboard. Melbourne Water gives that freeboard as typically 300 to 600 mm, and some councils state 300 mm.

On flood-affected land the zone's height limit runs from the minimum floor level to the roof rather than from the ground, so the height you give up to the flood level does not also come off the top of the house.

Two dwellings on one lot

Constructing two or more dwellings on a lot always needs a planning permit. Amendment VC288, operative in October 2025, opened a VicSmart path for two dwellings that meet the listed clause 55 standards. VicSmart applications are exempt from the notice requirements of section 52(1)(a) to (d) under clause 71.06-2, so council does not notify the neighbours. VicSmart also drops away the moment any other provision needs a permit under clause 71.06-1, which a tree, an overlay or a small lot will do on its own.

Clause 55 is now the Townhouse and Low-Rise Code, where meeting a standard counts as meeting its objective. A registered restrictive covenant on the title blocks a permit that would breach it, under section 61(4) of the Planning and Environment Act, which is why every dual occupancy and small development we take on starts with a title search.

How to check a specific address

Three documents answer nearly all of the above for a given block.

• The planning property report from VicPlan lists the zone and every overlay applying to the land.
• The certificate of title shows any registered restrictive covenant.
• Council confirms its own local laws and any heritage or neighbourhood character grading.

Pull those three before you commission a design. The statewide half of this list travels with you. The council half does not, which is why the address check behind custom home builds in Officer or custom home builds in Pakenham is not the same check we run in Boroondara or Glen Eira on an identical brief.

None of this rules a block out by itself. It sets the order of work: once those three answers land, you know whether the design goes to a planning application or straight to a building surveyor.