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Planning New Houses Requires Expertise From Professionals

If you’re considering a rebuild, or if you have purchased a vacant block of land, there are many factors to consider before you design your dream home - one of which may include planning permission to build a house from the Council.

While there are many reasons that your new home may require development approval from Council, some of the more common reasons include:

  • You're building within Brisbane’s Traditional Building Character Overlay / Character Zone

  • You're building on a small lot and require a relaxation for setbacks, site cover, height or building length

  • You're building within an area that is mapped as being impacted by flooding constraints

  • You're building on a site that backs onto a canal or river

  • Your site slopes steeply making compliance with height limitations challenging

Our ‘Design Guide’ service provides a written overview of the key planning matters that must be considered for the design of a new dwelling house on your site. This service is popular among architects, designers, and homeowners to assist with understanding the opportunities and limitations of a site before money is spent preparing design concept drawings.

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Important factors to assess during site preparation for building a house

There are a number of both natural and artificial factors we must assess. While no two projects are the same, we find the following are some of the most common examples.

Natural factors we assess

Is your site in a flood-prone area? Flooding is a risk across most Council regions in South East Queensland and each Council has their own requirements and restrictions based on the type and severity of flooding.

Vegetation and Biodiversity Values can impact the extent of construction that occurs on a site. Councils do not readily favour vegetation removal and in some cases biodiversity values can be state protected.

Storms, flooding, and associated erosion are all common examples of coastal hazards that are assessed prior to building. Rising sea levels are also a critical hazard, particularly in South East Queensland's bayside and coastal suburbs.

We assess and identify bushfire-prone areas in order to help you make safe and informed decisions relating to the positioning of buildings on sites.

Your local Council provides guidelines around trimming a tree or performing minor pruning work on vegetation that is not on your property. It’s common for landowners to assume Council will support removal of vegetation within the kerb in front of their property because of their proposed development, which in most cases is not correct.

Soil stability as well as slope assessment helps understand the risk of landslides. This analysis assists developers and engineers to make suitable and appropriate decisions on how structural elements are designed.

Obstruction of views is a consideration that must be made when it comes to your new build or extension plans. While no one can “own” a view, some Councils may have orders that protect views and vistas.

Artificial aspects we consider

Doyen consultants are well equipped with extensive experience in town planning and site preparation services.

Stormwater

New dwelling houses are required to discharge stormwater to a lawful point of discharge. In most cases this discharge location will be the gutter at the front of the site. In the instance that this is not possible due to factors such as land slope or land size, it is important to ensure that stormwater can be dealt with correctly in accordance with relevant legislation.

Sewerage

Your new dwelling requires connection to a sewer stub or an on site treatment facility. It’s important to understand the location of this sewer connection point as this can impact the design of a building when connection points are located mid-lot and cannot be built over.

Manholes

Manholes are unable to be lawfully built over and require clearance zones. It is important to locate any manholes as they may alter the design of a new dwelling house.

Telecommunications / NBN

The location of telecommunications cabling is important to establish before site works commence - digging up or interfering with this infrastructure can cause delays and increase costs unnecessarily.

Gas lines

The location of gas lines into your property can impact the location of structures on the site, so it’s important to locate them accurately at the beginning of the design process. Separation distances are required between any construction works and gas infrastructure.

Electricity poles

Electricity and power poles are generally located on the verge outside of lot boundaries. Accurately positioning these on proposal plans is important to ensure there are no clashes with pedestrian entrances or vehicle crossovers.

Contact Doyen’s Town Planning consultants today

Seeking Council approval for a new house? Need help with permits? Take advantage of our no-cost initial consultation and get advice on the requirements for planning permission for a new build house today.

During this initial consultation we’ll advise on the likelihood of obtaining approval for your dwelling project, and outline any key areas of concern.

Call (07) 3180 4702
Get in touch

Contact our Town Planners in Brisbane today

Request your free consultation valued at $450

You'll receive

  • Initial discussion and advice

  • Advice on immediate pain points

  • Advice on the process

  • Advice on timeframes and costs

  • Likelihood of success

  • An outline of opportunities and constraints

  • An understanding which other consultants need to be involved in the process

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