Site plans for Melville, Western Australia: drawn in minutes
Need a site plan for a shed, patio, carport, deck, pool or granny flat in Melville? Site plans and assessments in minutes, drawn over the real lot.
Building in Melville
Melville has one of the clearer lists of work that needs no development approval. A garage, carport, detached shed, patio, front fence or low retaining wall in a residential zone can each go ahead without it when it meets the City's conditions: sensible street setbacks, a limited share of the frontage for garages and carports, carports that match the house, modest shed size and height, patios open on at least two sides, see-through front fences above a solid base, and all buildings together leaving a good part of the site uncovered.
A granny flat qualifies too, on a larger single-house lot without common property, within a size limit and with a parking bay unless the lot is close to a train station or a frequent bus route. Heritage places and areas fall outside these exemptions. The City of Melville posts applications open for public comment online.
What we hold for Melville
For Melville 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 Melville 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 Western Australia page.
Changes on the way
Rule changes announced for Melville, 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
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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
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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 Melville
The rules we hold for Melville, 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 melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from melvillecity.com.au
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Council rules
Read from WA R-Codes Volume 1
Council notices
No story for Melville yet.
The sources we read for Melville
No page of Melville’s own is on our watch yet.
Follow Melville in a feed reader: www.rapidsiteplan.au/site-plan/melville/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 6150 and surrounds.
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