Do I Need a Planning Permit to Build or Renovate a House in Victoria?

Sometimes.

Many new homes and renovations in Victoria can proceed without a planning permit. The answer depends on the property, its size, the planning controls applying to the land and what you want to build, alter or demolish.

For many residential properties of 300 square metres or more, constructing a single home will not itself trigger a planning permit. The zone, overlays and other controls applying to the property still need to be checked. On many residential lots under 300 square metres, a planning permit is required.

Victoria also changed the rules governing single homes in September 2025, so some advice published before then is now out of date.

When someone contacts me about a property, one of the most useful things they can give me is the address. Before becoming attached to a design, I want to understand what the rules applying to that land might mean for the home.

Planning permit and building permit: what is the difference?

A planning permit deals with the use and development of land and assesses the proposal against the planning controls applying to the property. A building permit deals with the proposed building work against the Building Regulations and other technical requirements.

Some projects require both. Others can move directly into the building permit process.

This is why the general expression “getting council approval” can be misleading. A residential project may pass through several different regulatory processes involving council, a building surveyor and sometimes other authorities before construction can begin.

There is another complication that regularly causes confusion. Receiving a planning permit does not necessarily mean every siting issue affecting the house has already been assessed.

A planning permit might be required because the property has a Heritage Overlay. Council may assess the heritage implications of the proposed work while requirements dealing with matters such as setbacks or overlooking remain part of the later building approval process.

If the design does not comply with one of those Building Regulation requirements, a separate Report and Consent application may then be needed.

For a homeowner, this can be surprising. You may have spent months obtaining a planning permit and still have regulatory issues to resolve before receiving a building permit.

When does a house need a planning permit?

Land area is one of the first things we check. Victoria's current residential provisions generally require a planning permit and assessment against the residential design standards for a single dwelling on a lot under 300 square metres in the relevant residential zones.

For many lots above 300 square metres, those residential siting requirements are instead dealt with through the building permit process. Another planning control can still trigger a planning permit, which is why the individual property always needs to be checked.

Heritage is an obvious example. Flooding controls can introduce additional requirements, while bushfire controls may influence where a house sits, its relationship with vegetation and the way access is provided. Other overlays can affect vegetation, demolition, neighbourhood character or development on a particular site.

I would therefore never look at a 700-square-metre property and assume the planning position is straightforward from its size alone.

There is also a streamlined planning process called VicSmart for eligible applications. It has a prescribed 10-business-day assessment period, applications are not advertised and council's assessment is confined to specified matters. Your architect or planner should establish whether the proposal qualifies.

What is Report and Consent?

Report and Consent sits within the building approval process and can be required where a design departs from certain requirements of the Building Regulations and the regulations allow that variation to be considered.

Imagine a proposed wall sits slightly closer to a boundary than the relevant requirement allows. The local council may be asked to assess that particular departure and decide whether it can be approved.

I would want a good reason for pursuing one. If moving a wall 300 millimetres creates a substantially better room with very little impact on the adjoining property, seeking approval may be worthwhile. A variation that adds time and approval risk while contributing very little to the home deserves more scrutiny.

The interaction between planning and Report and Consent is one of the less intuitive parts of the system. Where a planning application has already assessed a particular residential siting issue, that can affect how the same matter is treated during building approval. Where the planning permit was triggered by something else, such as heritage, some siting requirements may still need to be addressed later under the Building Regulations.

Understanding what council has actually assessed is therefore just as important as knowing that a planning permit has been issued.

I think the Victorian residential approval system is a mess

I work with the Victorian approval system regularly and think it is far more complicated than it needs to be.

A single house can involve the planning scheme, Building Regulations, overlays, council planners, council building departments, a private building surveyor, VicSmart, Report and Consent and restrictions contained on the property title. Different parts of the system are dealt with by different people, and receiving one approval does not necessarily resolve everything required by another.

The time involved compounds the problem. A planning application can extend over many months where additional information, referrals, advertising, design changes or other regulatory requirements enter the process.

During that period the homeowner is largely waiting, yet the project continues moving financially. Building prices, labour rates and material costs can change, so a construction budget established when design began may buy less by the time the approvals needed to start work are finally in place.

For someone preparing to spend several million dollars creating a home, months of delay can have a significant financial consequence.

There is also considerable uncertainty for the family. They may already own the land, have spent money on architects and consultants and be emotionally invested in a proposed home while still waiting to know whether they can proceed as planned.

This is why I place so much value on investigating the regulatory position early. We cannot remove every approval risk or control how quickly every authority responds, but we can identify many of the likely issues before they become expensive surprises.

Start with the property, especially before buying it

VicPlan, the Victorian Government's online planning map, is a useful first step. Enter an address and you can see the zone and overlays applying to the property.

Finding those controls is relatively easy. Understanding what they mean for the home you want to build requires more judgement.

An older house in Kew or Toorak may have heritage controls affecting demolition or alteration. A Mornington Peninsula or regional property may have bushfire requirements that influence the position of the house, vegetation and access. Two blocks in the same suburb with similar areas and asking prices can therefore present very different opportunities to the same family.

This becomes particularly important before purchasing land. A real estate advertisement will usually tell you the land area and frontage, while the relationship between your particular brief and the planning, building and title constraints requires separate investigation.

I would also look beyond the planning scheme. Easements, restrictive covenants, services, significant trees, topography, neighbouring buildings, privacy, views and orientation can all influence what makes sense on a property.

For someone contemplating a substantial investment, I would investigate those things before settlement wherever possible. I want to know whether the property can comfortably support the home the family hopes to create.

Understand the constraints before the design becomes precious

There is a point during a project where a family begins to see the future house very clearly. They understand how the kitchen relates to the garden, where they will sit in the evening and what they may see from a particular room.

Discovering a major approval issue at that stage can be painful.

If heritage affects the property, I want it influencing the concept from the beginning. The same applies to building height, setbacks, overlooking and any likely Report and Consent applications. Early knowledge gives the architecture an opportunity to respond while changing the design is still relatively straightforward.

For a substantial new home or renovation, I would want the project team to establish early:

• whether a planning permit is likely to be required

• what is triggering that permit

• which aspects of the proposal council will assess through planning

• whether VicSmart may apply

• which Building Regulations will still need to be addressed later

• whether any likely departures may require Report and Consent

• whether easements, restrictive covenants or other title conditions affect the property

The useful output from that work is an understanding of consequences. The homeowner should know which issues could influence the architecture, create approval risk, add time or affect the value of the property to them.

So, do you need a planning permit?

You might, and for many Victorian properties the likely answer can be established reasonably quickly once we know the address and what you want to do.

The more important work is understanding what happens after that answer. We need to know what the planning permit will actually assess, what remains for the building approval process and which constraints deserve to influence the architecture before too much time, money and emotion have been invested.

That is where experienced advice can be particularly valuable.

Need help understanding a property?

Borland Architecture can review the planning and building constraints affecting a property and explain what they may mean for the home you want to create.

If you have a property in mind, book a Home Clarity Call and send us the address.