Site plans for Adelaide, South Australia: drawn in minutes
Need a site plan for a shed, patio, carport, deck, pool or granny flat in Adelaide? Site plans and assessments in minutes, drawn over the real lot.
Building in Adelaide
Siting in the City of Adelaide follows the Planning and Design Code, the same code every South Australian council uses, but its Technical and Numeric Variations can change figures such as maximum building height for parts of the council area. Check the variations for your lot on the state's planning atlas before settling on a roof height.
Roofed structures catch people out. A roofed verandah, patio or carport is development at any size and takes planning consent and building consent through PlanSA; only an unroofed pergola with every freestanding side open is treated differently. Heritage mapping is read for every lot, and a local heritage place removes several of the state's small-work exclusions. Lodged work shows on the PlanSA development application register.
What we hold for Adelaide
For Adelaide we hold the council’s own rules for:
- sheds, garden sheds, garages and carports
- patios, pergolas, louvred roofs, decks and shade sails
- pools, fences and retaining walls
- granny flats
- driveways, water tanks and shipping containers
At each lot we check the state’s mapping for flood, bushfire, heritage and native vegetation. We also read the council’s application register for past applications on the lot.
Last checked
How approval works in South Australia
In South Australia development approval brings together planning consent, against the Planning and Design Code, and building consent, against the building rules, both applied for through the PlanSA portal. Some small structures are not development at all and need neither. Others are accepted development, which needs building consent but no planning assessment; deemed-to-satisfy development gets planning consent when it meets the Code's standards; and performance assessed development is weighed on its merits. The council, or an accredited professional such as a private certifier, issues each consent. The assessor reads the site plan for the structure's size, its distance to each boundary and how much of the lot is covered. The zone and the overlays on the lot decide the pathway, as per the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 and the Planning and Design Code.
Drawing the plan
Type the property address, the lot’s real boundaries load from official land records in South Australia, and you place the structure over the aerial view. The plan prints to scale with boundary lengths, setback distances, a north arrow, a legend, a site coverage table and a title block, as the site plan for a development approval.
What a certifier in Adelaide will ask you
How deep is the pool?
The depth decides whether the water needs a barrier, and the barrier has to be in place before the pool is filled. The barrier is what gets inspected, so the sheet shows where it runs and every gate with its swing.
Is the patio a pergola, a louvred roof or a solid roof?
An open pergola and a roofed patio are treated differently near the boundary, and louvres that shut to shed water count as a roof. Roofed, it also adds to the site cover total on the sheet.
Is the lot in an overlay, and what is the zoning?
A flood, bushfire, heritage or character overlay can bring a planning approval on top of the building approval, and the zone decides which of the council’s rules apply. The mapped overlays are read at the lot as the structure goes on the plan.
Is the carport open, or closed in?
How open the carport is changes whether it needs a fire rated wall near the boundary, and a roller door or a later enclosure reopens the question. A shed never takes the open carport exemption.
The figures for your own lot are read in a minute, from its address.
Every question a certifier asks is on the South Australia page.
Changes on the way
Rule changes announced for Adelaide, for South Australia and for the whole country, the state and national lines in full on the South Australia page, each with the page that says so and the day we read it.
In the next 90 days
Nothing due in the next 90 days that we know of.
Later
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National Construction Code 2025, Building Code
Source plan.sa.gov.au, read
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ABCB Housing Provisions 2025 (with NCC 2025)
Source abcb.gov.au, read
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AS 1926.1:2024 Swimming pool safety barriers
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
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NCC 2025 Housing Provisions Part 10.8
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
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NCC 2025 Housing Provisions Part 9.2
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
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NCC 2025 Volume Two Part H6, Specification 42 and Housing Provisions Section 13
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
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NCC 2025 Volume Two Part H8
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
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National Construction Code, residential pause
Source treasury.gov.au, read
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National Construction Code, next edition
Source abcb.gov.au, read
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No date yet
State-wide Bushfire Hazards Overlay Code Amendment
Source yoursay.sa.gov.au, read
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No date yet
State-wide Flood Hazard Code Amendment
Source yoursay.sa.gov.au, read
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No date yet
AS 3959:2018 Construction of buildings in bushfire prone areas
Source store.standards.org.au, read
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No date yet
AS 4678-2002 Earth retaining structures
Source store.standards.org.au, read
What we changed for Adelaide
The rules we hold for Adelaide, each brought up to date from the page it names, newest first. The summary above reads from them.
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Council rules
Read from plan.sa.gov.au
Council notices
No story for Adelaide yet.
The sources we read for Adelaide
No page of Adelaide’s own is on our watch yet.
Follow Adelaide in a feed reader: www.rapidsiteplan.au/site-plan/adelaide/feed.xml. Every council and state has one, listed on rule changes by council and state.
RapidSiteplan is design software: you confirm details, measure on site and your certifier or council makes the approval decision. The rule above is general information, not building or legal advice. Boundaries shown are indicative, a surveyor is recommended where exact positions matter.
Serving postcodes 5000 and surrounds.
Plans for the job
Questions people ask
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