Site plans for Dorset, Tasmania: drawn in minutes
Need a site plan for a shed, patio, carport, deck, pool or granny flat in Dorset? Site plans and assessments in minutes, drawn over the real lot.
Building in Dorset
At Bridport, the Main Street Central plan is one of Dorset's specific area plans, alongside the Barnbougle Dunes and Lost Farm plan. Where a lot sits in one, or carries a site-specific qualification, those provisions can stand in for or add to the zone's figures.
Elsewhere the State Planning Provisions apply. A vehicular crossing from the road to the boundary takes an application to the council and is built to its standard at the owner's cost. Bushfire prone areas and heritage listings are the usual surprises, and the state's mapping for both is read for each lot. Dorset Council lists advertised development applications.
What we hold for Dorset
For Dorset 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 Tasmania
In Tasmania building work is sorted by risk. Low-risk work needs no permit; notifiable work needs a building surveyor's certificate of likely compliance and a notice to the council; and permit work also needs a building permit from the council as the permit authority. Planning is a separate question, usually settled first: under the planning scheme a development is exempt, permitted when it meets the acceptable solutions, or discretionary when it relies on the performance criteria, which the council decides and may advertise for comment. The building surveyor and the council read the site plan for where the structure sits against each boundary and the house. Size, siting and the codes over the lot decide both questions, as per the Tasmanian Planning Scheme and the Building Act 2016 categories of building work.
Drawing the plan
Type the property address, the lot’s real boundaries load from official land records in Tasmania, 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 planning permit.
What a certifier in Dorset will ask you
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.
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.
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 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.
The figures for your own lot are read in a minute, from its address.
Every question a certifier asks is on the Tasmania page.
Changes on the way
Rule changes announced for Dorset, for Tasmania and for the whole country, the state and national lines in full on the Tasmania 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
-
National Construction Code 2025
Source cbos.tas.gov.au, read
-
ABCB Housing Provisions 2025 (with NCC 2025)
Source abcb.gov.au, read
-
AS 1926.1:2024 Swimming pool safety barriers
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
-
NCC 2025 Housing Provisions Part 10.8
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
-
NCC 2025 Housing Provisions Part 9.2
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
-
NCC 2025 Volume Two Part H6, Specification 42 and Housing Provisions Section 13
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
-
NCC 2025 Volume Two Part H8
Source ncc.abcb.gov.au, read
-
National Construction Code, residential pause
Source treasury.gov.au, read
-
National Construction Code, next edition
Source abcb.gov.au, read
-
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
What we changed for Dorset
The rules we hold for Dorset, each brought up to date from the page it names, newest first. The summary above reads from them.
-
Council rules
Read from services.thelist.tas.gov.au
Council notices
No story for Dorset yet.
The sources we read for Dorset
No page of Dorset’s own is on our watch yet.
Follow Dorset in a feed reader: www.rapidsiteplan.au/site-plan/dorset/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
Questions people ask
More councils in Tasmania