One Planner's Archive





Discussion Papers & Articles

Victoria's New Residential Zones
Aboriginal Cultural Heritage
Calculating Council's 60 Day Timeframe
Applying for Costs at VCAT
Amending a Planning Permit



Garden Area and “The Lot”

A recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal “RED DOT” decision has provided clarity on the definition of “lot”, where there are multiple titles involved in one planning permit application, for example, building multiple dwellings over two titles. The decision in Clayton Gardens Pty Ltd v Monash CC [2019] VCAT 1138 considered whether the mandatory garden area requirement applies to each single lot or to the whole application area if there are multiple titles in an application. It also considered whether, if it applied to the multiple titles, whether it was reasonable to include a condition on the permit requiring the lots to be consolidated as part of the approval.

VicSmart

In recent issues we have discussed the extension of the VicSmart system, set out in Clauses 90-95 of the Victorian Planning Provisions (VPP). VicSmart provides a shorter planning permit process for simple and straightforward applications. Two recent VCAT decisions have dealt with the VicSmart provisions and will be of interest to regular permit applicants:

Expiring Permits in New Zones

Regular readers of this column will be familiar with the profound impact that the recently introduced residential zones have had on future development. However, the new NRZ, with its prohibitions on certain types of development including more than two dwellings in many instances, has wreaked havoc when it comes to extending timeframes and amending planning permits granted before these zones were introduced.

A Year In Review

The last 12 months has seen a number of significant changes in planning and a number of interesting VCAT decisions which inform our practice. We have put together a brief summary of the main items reported in Planning Tid Bits over 2014.