Overlays in the Check

Overview

Every overlay on your site now gets its own line in the Check, so none passes silently. It says what the overlay is, what was measured, and what to do next, with a link to its schedule on the official planning scheme.

The Check also lists What this Check covers: every major rule category, marked Checked, Partial, Not checked or Not relevant here, with the reason. A good result means the rules measured here pass. It isn't a planning opinion.

What Each Line Means

Open Check and look under Overlay controls:

• Check on site: this overlay can stop or change a project before design matters, such as a flood overlay, a Bushfire Management Overlay, an Environmental Audit Overlay, a Public Acquisition Overlay or a Development Plan Overlay. Act on it early.
• Not checked: this overlay sets controls the Check doesn't measure yet, so read its schedule.
• Meets, Variation or Breaks a rule: a measured result, from a clear number in a Design and Development Overlay schedule: building height, and where stated plainly, front, side and rear setbacks, site coverage, storeys and front fence height.

What You Should Still Read

Schedules are written in many ways, and most numbers depend on a location, a precinct or an exception. We only use a number that's stated plainly:

• A number that depends on conditions isn't measured. The Check says controls to read, and links to the schedule.
• Where a schedule varies by precinct or map area, a design can be shown to meet every area but never to fail: anything between says to check which area you're in.
• Most Design and Development Overlays have no number this clear: about 1 in 25 across metropolitan Melbourne when we measured. So don't take no finding to mean there's no control.
• Significant Landscape Overlays aren't measured. Their numbers are mostly the limits for not needing a permit, not limits on a design.

Fill designs to the clear numbers, and to a single building height, where they don't vary by area. It can't design to what we can't read.

Some things are never measured here, and the coverage list says why: planning policy and neighbourhood character, heritage impact, subdivision under Clause 56, bushfire design, the National Construction Code, and title and covenants. A covenant can stop a design that meets every rule here, so order a title search.

Where to See It

• Check: under Overlay controls and What this Check covers.
• Check report and its PDF: the same list.
• Compliance statement: what it covers, at the top.
• Site report: the count beside the verdict.

Sources