Site plans for Cambridge, Western Australia: drawn in minutes
Need a site plan for a shed, patio, carport, deck, pool or granny flat in Cambridge? Site plans and assessments in minutes, drawn over the real lot.
Building in Cambridge
Cambridge building work runs on two tracks, planning and the building permit, and the design can be certified by a private registered building surveyor. Expect the statewide residential codes to set most numbers, with room for a local policy to change street setbacks, garage and carport setbacks, site works and boundary walls. Statewide native vegetation, heritage and flood layers apply here, and land caught by them can change what a simple structure needs.
The statewide shed allowance is modest, and staying inside it, away from heritage places, is what usually keeps an outbuilding out of the development approval stream. The Town of Cambridge advertises development applications online, so you can see what has been lodged nearby. Granny flats are treated as dwellings for building purposes, so a building permit applies even when planning is straightforward. A pool needs a building permit and a compliant barrier, and Western Australia inspects barriers regularly.
What we hold for Cambridge
For Cambridge 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, 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 Western Australia
In Western Australia the local government is the permit authority and issues the building permit, and an application can arrive with the design already checked by a private registered building surveyor, who issues a certificate of design compliance. Some small structures need no building permit, but every structure still has to meet the planning side: on a house lot, the Residential Design Codes and the local planning policies. Work that meets their deemed-to-comply standards, on a place that is not heritage protected, needs no planning approval; work that does not goes to the local government as a development application, judged against the design principles. The site plan shows the structure's distance to each boundary, its wall height and the open space left on the lot. The lot's density coding decides how close a structure can go, as per the Residential Design Codes (R-Codes) and the Building Act 2011.
Drawing the plan
Type the property address, the lot’s real boundaries load from official land records in Western 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 building permit or a development application.
What a certifier in Cambridge 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 Western Australia page.
Changes on the way
Rule changes announced for Cambridge, for Western Australia and for the whole country, the state and national lines in full on the Western 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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Residential Design Codes (review), consultation draft
Source wa.gov.au, read
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Building Regulations 2012, Schedules 4 and 5 (Building Amendment Regulations (No. 2) 2026)
Source legislation.wa.gov.au, read
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Building Code of Australia 2025, WA addition (Industry Bulletin 174)
Source wa.gov.au, read
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National Construction Code 2025
Source ncc.abcb.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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Residential Design Codes (review), changes in effect
Source wa.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
-
No date yet
Bushfire Prone Areas (OBRM-026)
Source services.slip.wa.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
-
No date yet
AS 4678-2002 Earth retaining structures
Source store.standards.org.au, read
Date passed, next step not seen yet
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Building Code of Australia 2025, WA additions for private swimming pools (Industry Bulletin 175)
Source wa.gov.au, read
What we changed for Cambridge
The rules we hold for Cambridge, 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 WA R-Codes Volume 1
Council notices
No story for Cambridge yet.
The sources we read for Cambridge
No page of Cambridge’s own is on our watch yet.
Follow Cambridge in a feed reader: www.rapidsiteplan.au/site-plan/cambridge/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.
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