Site plans for Byron, New South Wales: drawn in minutes
Need a site plan for a shed, patio, carport, deck, pool or granny flat in Byron? Site plans and assessments in minutes, drawn over the real lot.
Towns and suburbs in Byron include Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Brunswick Heads and Suffolk Park.
Building in Byron
Byron Shire's rules leave little in the front setback beyond bins, letterboxes, landscaping and driveways. The house keeps a set distance from a local road and much more from a classified road, with garages and carports further back again, and a corner lot may reduce the setback on one frontage.
Side and rear setbacks work with a building height plane, so taller walls must step in from the boundary. A secondary dwelling keeps a wider gap than the house, pool coping and the water line each keep their own distance from the boundaries, and a share of every site is held as deep soil, leaving out any effluent area.
Byron Shire Council holds its own flood mapping, which can matter in low-lying parts of Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Bangalow or Brunswick Heads. Applications can be followed on the council's DA tracker.
What we hold for Byron
For Byron 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 council’s own mapping for flood, and the state’s mapping for flood, bushfire, landslide, heritage and native vegetation. We also read the council’s application register for past applications on the lot.
Last checked
How approval works in New South Wales
In New South Wales a small structure goes through the planning pathway it fits. Exempt development needs no approval and nothing is lodged, but the structure has to meet every exempt standard and the land must not be excluded from it. Complying development is a fast approval: a complying development certificate from a registered certifier or the council, for work that meets the state's complying standards. Anything else needs a development application to the council, assessed against its local environmental plan and development control plan. The certifier or the council reads the site plan for the structure's size and its distance to each boundary and the house, and for exempt work the plan is the owner's own record. Size, height, distance to each boundary and the land itself decide the pathway, as per the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008.
Drawing the plan
Type the property address, the lot’s real boundaries load from official land records in New South Wales, 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 DA or a complying development certificate.
What a certifier in Byron will ask you
How high can a retaining wall and a fence go?
Each takes its own height test, and a retaining wall carrying a fence has its own approval. Both heights go on the sheet for the certifier to read together.
How big can a granny flat be, and how far from the house?
The council caps a granny flat’s floor area, and some councils also limit how far from the house it may stand. The sheet prints the floor area and dimensions the distance to the house.
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.
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.
The figures for your own lot are read in a minute, from its address.
Every question a certifier asks is on the New South Wales page.
Changes on the way
Rule changes announced for Byron, for New South Wales and for the whole country, the state and national lines in full on the New South Wales page, each with the page that says so and the day we read it.
In the next 90 days
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Codes SEPP and the complying development variations pathway
Source planningportal.nsw.gov.au, read
Later
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National Construction Code 2025
Source nsw.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
Draft Byron Shire Overland Flood Study
A draft study of overland flooding on public exhibition; it changes no control until Council adopts it and carries it into its plans
Source byron.nsw.gov.au, read
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No date yet
Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Act 2026
Source nsw.gov.au, read
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No date yet
Planning for Bush Fire Protection 2026
Source rfs.nsw.gov.au, read
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No date yet
Standard and model conditions of consent (explanation of intended effect)
Source planningportal.nsw.gov.au, read
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No date yet
Statewide low rise housing code and targeted assessment (discussion paper)
Source planningportal.nsw.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 Byron
The rules we hold for Byron, 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 byron.nsw.gov.au
Council notices
No story for Byron yet.
The sources we read for Byron
No page of Byron’s own is on our watch yet.
Follow Byron in a feed reader: www.rapidsiteplan.au/site-plan/byron/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.
Plans for the job
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