Town planner in Port Stephens

Planning in Port Stephens

Williamtown RAAF base brings aircraft noise mapping and the PFAS management area into planning around Williamtown, Salt Ash and Fullerton Cove.

Bushfire, koala habitat and the coastal zone affect the Tomaree Peninsula and Medowie, and sewer availability limits some villages.

Kings Hill and the Raymond Terrace corridor are the growth fronts.

What we do for Port Stephens sites

• Statements of Environmental Effects for new houses, knock-down rebuilds, alterations, dual occupancies, secondary dwellings and townhouses, written to Port Stephens Local Environmental Plan 2013 and Port Stephens Development Control Plan 2014.
• Development due diligence reports before you buy: zoning, permissibility, yield, constraints and the approval pathway.
• Dual occupancy and duplex planning, including minimum lot size and frontage checks, CDC eligibility under the Low Rise Housing Diversity Code and Torrens subdivision advice.
• Granny flat planning where the site does not fit the Housing Code and a DA is needed.
• Townhouse and multi dwelling housing yield testing, DCP compliance and SEE reports.
• Subdivision, Clause 4.6 requests, DA or CDC advice and responses to council requests.

Suburbs we cover in Port Stephens

How a DA works in Port Stephens

Development applications are lodged through the NSW Planning Portal and assessed by the council against the LEP, the DCP and the section 4.15 matters in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. Where a proposal meets every standard in the Codes SEPP it may instead be approved as complying development by a private certifier, which is faster but has no room for merit assessment. We check both pathways before recommending one.

A complete application is the single biggest thing an applicant controls. Our Statements of Environmental Effects address the LEP and DCP in the order the assessing officer reads them, with the sources shown, so requests for information are the exception rather than the rule.