Landscape used to be the drawing that arrived last and got value managed first. That has changed. In most Australian capitals the landscape drawings now carry numbers the consent authority checks: a percentage of the site that must be deep soil, a percentage of the site that must sit under tree canopy at maturity, a minimum count of trees by mature size, and in a few councils a composite greening score the scheme has to hit. Those numbers land on the parts of a site a developer usually treats as free, which is the rear setback and the ground under the basement. That is why landscape has become a yield question rather than a finishing question.
The people who hold the answers on any given site are the landscape architect, who reads the controls against the survey and the concept plan and works out what area has to stay unbuilt and where; the arborist, who decides which existing trees can survive construction and what area around each one has to be protected; and the consent authority, whose development control plan or local scheme often asks for more than the state instrument does. The architect draws to that advice, and the basement engineer draws to whatever is left.
The controls below were current at the date of writing and several of them are new. Victoria’s canopy tree clause commenced in September 2025. The New South Wales tree canopy guide for low and mid-rise housing was published in February 2025. Brisbane had a landscape amendment in consultation through late 2025. Every load-bearing point here is linked to the department, council or legislation that publishes it, and that link is the place to confirm the position on a specific site before the numbers go into a feasibility.
What does a landscape architect actually do on a development?
A landscape architect designs and documents everything outside the building envelope, then demonstrates to the consent authority that the design meets the landscape controls that apply. On a typical residential or mixed-use project the work falls into four stages.
- Concept and due diligence. The landscape architect works out what the controls take off the developable area before the architect commits to a footprint. That means the deep soil area and its minimum dimension, the tree canopy percentage or tree count, any trees on or near the site that have to be retained, and any council policy that asks for more. On a constrained infill site this is the input that sets the basement boundary, and it is the cheapest point at which to move it.
- Development application stage. A landscape plan, a planting schedule, sections through planters on structure showing soil depth and volume, a landscape area calculation plan, and usually a written statement addressing each relevant control. Councils increasingly want the deep soil and canopy calculations shown graphically with areas hatched and totalled, not asserted in a table.
- Construction documentation. Levels, drainage, soil specifications, planter build-ups, irrigation, paving, edges, furniture, lighting and a maintenance regime. Soil volume is the item most often lost between approval and construction, because a slab set 100 millimetres too high can take a planter below the depth the approval assumed.
- Practical completion and the maintenance period. Landscape is usually the last trade on site and the one most likely to be defective at handover. Conditions of consent commonly require planting to be established and maintained for a period, and a bond or bank guarantee may be held against it.
On larger projects the landscape architect also runs the public domain interface, which is the footpath, verge, street trees and any land being dedicated to council. That work tends to have its own approval path and its own timeline, and it is a common source of occupation certificate delay.
Is a landscape architect the same as a landscape designer or a landscaper?
No, and the difference matters when a council condition names the discipline. A landscaper builds. A landscape designer designs, usually for residential gardens, and may or may not have formal qualifications. A landscape architect holds a tertiary qualification in landscape architecture and works across planning controls, documentation and contract administration in the same way an architect does.
The trap is that the title itself carries no statutory weight. Unlike “architect”, which is restricted under state architects legislation, the title “landscape architect” is generally not subject to an equivalent statutory registration scheme in Australia. The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects runs a voluntary Registered Landscape Architect scheme, which is the usual way a client checks qualification and experience, but registration is not a legal precondition to practising or to lodging a landscape plan. Where a consent condition requires a plan “prepared by a suitably qualified landscape architect”, council guidance on what it treats as suitably qualified is not uniform, and it is the document the condition is assessed against.
It is also worth separating the landscape architect from the arborist. They are different disciplines with different outputs, and most infill applications need both. The town planner, whose fees and scope usually cover coordinating the consultant team, is the one who pulls the two reports together for lodgement.
What is deep soil, and why does it decide the basement footprint?
Deep soil is ground with no structure above or below it, connected to the natural soil profile, so that a tree can root into it and water can infiltrate. The definition is doing the work: a planter on a slab is not deep soil, no matter how deep the planter is, and neither is a landscaped area over a basement.
That single definition is why the deep soil control sets the basement boundary. Every square metre of required deep soil is a square metre that no basement level can occupy. On a site where the basement is sized by the parking requirement, deep soil converts directly into either an extra basement level or fewer apartments.
Two properties of a deep soil area matter and only one of them is obvious.
- Area. Usually expressed as a percentage of site area.
- Minimum dimension. A long, thin strip of soil holds far less root volume than a compact area of the same size, and it sits inside the influence of adjacent footings. Controls therefore specify a minimum width as well as an area, and slivers narrower than that width generally do not count toward the total. The width limb is the one most often missed, and an area calculated without it tends to shrink at assessment.
There is a second, quieter constraint sitting underneath this. Soil volume, not soil depth, is what grows a large tree. Beyond roughly a metre of depth the horticultural gain is generally treated as limited, so a tree needing a large soil volume tends to need it spread horizontally, which means a wide deep soil area rather than a deep one. That is the physical reason the minimum dimension exists, and the reason a council landscape officer may push back on a narrow strip even where the arithmetic works.
What is tree canopy cover, and how is it measured?
Tree canopy cover is the proportion of the site that would sit in the shadow of tree crowns at maturity, measured as a plan projection of the canopy, not the trunk. Controls are expressed either as a percentage of site area or as a required number of trees graded by mature size, and increasingly both, with the applicant free to satisfy the control either way.
Three points decide whether a scheme complies.
- Maturity, not planting size. The canopy counted is the canopy at maturity, which pushes the design toward species that genuinely reach the assumed dimensions in the soil volume provided. A schedule of small ornamentals will not deliver a canopy target regardless of how many are planted.
- Existing trees count. Retained trees usually contribute to the target, which is where the retention decision and the canopy calculation start pulling in the same direction. A single large retained tree can do more for the number than a dozen new plantings, and it is also the tree most likely to constrain the building footprint.
- Trees on structure generally do not count, or count less. A tree in a planter over a basement is not in deep soil, and the control usually requires a proportion of the canopy to sit over deep soil.
The interaction between the two controls is the thing to model early. A canopy percentage forces large trees. Large trees need soil volume. Soil volume needs deep soil area with a real width. Deep soil area cannot sit over a basement. Any one of those controls read on its own looks minor, and read together they set the plan.
What is a green factor score?
A green factor score is a single weighted number that measures how much greening a development provides across the whole site, including the roof and the facade rather than the ground plane alone. Different greening elements earn different weightings: deep soil planting and large canopy trees score heavily, planting on structure scores less, green roofs and green walls score something, and permeable paving scores a little. The scheme has to reach a minimum score.
The point of the mechanism, from a developer’s perspective, is substitution. A percentage deep soil control is binary and unforgiving on a tight site. A green factor score lets a scheme that genuinely cannot deliver deep soil compensate with roof and facade greening, which is why the tool tends to appear in dense inner-city councils where ground-level area is scarcest.
The City of Sydney has adopted a Green Factor Score approach and has been embedding it in its planning controls, with its published guidance describing a required score that varies by development type, location and site conditions. That council’s sustainable development guidance also separates the voluntary benchmarks it encourages from the mandatory requirements, which sit in its local environmental plan and development control plan. The distinction is worth checking on any inner Sydney site, because the two documents are not the same thing and only one of them is a refusal ground.
Because green factor tools are adopted council by council rather than by a state instrument, there is no national position and no way to read one across from another. Where a score applies, it is usually calculated in a council-published spreadsheet or online tool and submitted with the application.
What do the landscape controls require in each state and territory?
The short answer is that New South Wales and Victoria now have explicit state-level numbers, Western Australia and South Australia have state-level frameworks with the detail in policy documents, and Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory leave it largely to councils. Below is where each sits.
New South Wales
Three instruments matter, and which one applies depends on the development type.
For residential flat buildings and shop top housing, the Apartment Design Guide is the operative document. It provides design criteria and guidance for achieving the nine design quality principles in Schedule 9 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021. The department’s page records that on 14 December 2023 the provisions of the former State Environmental Planning Policy No 65 were transferred into that policy, so the guide now sits behind Chapter 4 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021 rather than behind the older instrument.
The guide’s deep soil design criteria under Objective 3E-1 are commonly applied as a minimum deep soil zone of 7 per cent of site area, with a minimum dimension of 3 metres on sites between 650 and 1,500 square metres and 6 metres on sites greater than 1,500 square metres. The department’s own material notes that these are design criteria rather than absolute standards, and its published case studies discuss schemes where strict consistency with a criterion was not possible but the objective was still demonstrated. That flexibility is real, and it is also the flexibility a consent authority is entitled to decline to exercise.
For development in a low and mid-rise housing area under Chapter 6 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021, the department has published a Tree Canopy Guide for Low and Mid-Rise Housing. Its guidance page states that where the policy applies, “developers and consent authorities must consider the guide, which includes provisions for tree canopy, deep soil, and tree planting rates”. The guide’s requirements vary by housing typology and site area, and it offers an either-or compliance route: a proposal can meet a tree planting rate, or plant a mix of tree sizes that delivers an equivalent canopy percentage. On a dual occupancy the canopy and deep soil requirements apply to the development as a whole, while on multi dwelling housing they are applied per dwelling, which changes the arithmetic considerably on a terrace scheme. If a site is inside a low and mid-rise housing area, this guide is a gating document rather than advisory reading, and it pairs with the broader low and mid-rise housing reforms.
For the pattern book pathway, Government Architect NSW has published a landscape design guide alongside the pattern designs. Its stated purpose is to make it easier to prepare a landscape plan that meets council requirements, including for deep soil planting zones, permeable surfaces and tree canopy, and it includes a planting handbook organised by climate zone.
On top of all three, council development control plans continue to apply. The low and mid-rise policy page is explicit that existing provisions in other policies, local environmental plans and development control plans remain relevant to the merit assessment. Landscaped area, canopy and tree retention controls in a development control plan are commonly more demanding than the state position, and the applicable plan is the document that carries the number.
Victoria
Victoria made two distinct changes and they interact.
First, the residential code. The deemed to comply standards under the Townhouse and Low-Rise Code were approved on 6 March 2025 and commenced on 31 March 2025, with applications lodged before 6 March 2025 assessed under the previous version of clause 55. Tree canopy is one of the neighbourhood character standards in clause 55.02. Where an applicable standard is met, the responsible authority is not required to consider other policy or decision guidelines in the scheme, and where all applicable standards are met there is no third party right of appeal. That removal of objector appeal rights is a significant commercial feature of the code and it is conditional on meeting the standards, including the canopy one.
Second, a stand-alone tree removal permit trigger. On 15 September 2025, Amendment VC289 introduced clause 52.37 (Canopy trees) into all Victorian planning schemes, as set out in the department’s guidance on protecting and enhancing our tree canopy. The clause requires a planning permit to remove, destroy or lop a canopy tree in specified circumstances, and it applies in all residential zones except the Low Density Residential Zone.
The definitions are precise and worth knowing before a site inspection. The department states that a canopy tree means a tree that has a height of more than 5 metres above ground level, and a trunk circumference of more than 0.5 metres measured at 1.4 metres above ground level, and a canopy diameter of at least 4 metres. All three limbs of that test have to be satisfied.
Where the permit trigger bites depends on the state of the land. The department’s guidance is that a permit is required to remove, destroy or lop a canopy tree anywhere on the lot where the land is vacant, or where the land is vacant and a new single dwelling is proposed and only a building permit is required. Where the land contains an existing dwelling, or where a planning permit application for dwellings is being assessed, the trigger applies to canopy trees within 6 metres of the narrowest street frontage and 4.5 metres of the rear boundary. A vacant site is therefore treated more strictly than a site with a house on it, which is a counterintuitive result and a real acquisition consideration on a knock-down site.
The replacement obligation is where the yield impact sits. The department states that clause 52.37-3 sets a minimum canopy cover requirement of approximately 10 per cent on land up to 1,000 square metres and 20 per cent on land greater than 1,000 square metres, and gives the worked example that on a site area of 700 square metres the canopy tree requirement is four trees. The requirement may be met by retaining existing canopy trees, by planting new ones, or by a combination. A replacement tree must be of a species and type that at maturity will have an expected height of at least 6 metres above ground level and an expected canopy diameter of at least 4 metres, and a council may accept fewer trees if they are larger.
Two procedural points soften the clause. Some applications are eligible for the VicSmart pathway, which the department says should be decided in 10 business days. Where an application is not eligible for VicSmart, notice is not required and the council’s decision cannot be reviewed by the tribunal, although an applicant refused a permit may still seek review. The department also states the clause does not override overlays, bushfire requirements, or local laws except where a local law duplicates the clause, so a vegetation protection overlay or a council tree local law can still apply on top.
The department records the canopy work as Action 12 of Plan for Victoria, which is the strategy the rest of the state’s current planning reform sits under.
Queensland
Queensland has no equivalent state-level deep soil or canopy percentage for urban residential development. The controls sit in local planning schemes, which means the number changes at the council boundary and there is no state fallback to argue from.
Brisbane City Council has been amending the landscape side of Brisbane City Plan 2014. Its amendment package P proposes changes to the landscape design, planting species and vegetation planning scheme policies concerning how deep planting and subtropical landscaping is delivered by new developments, with public consultation having run in late 2025. The commencement status of that package is what decides which deep planting percentage a Brisbane basement is sized against, so the pre-amendment policy and the amended one are different feasibility inputs.
Outside Brisbane, the applicable landscape and vegetation codes are in the relevant council’s planning scheme and there is no useful generalisation across south-east Queensland.
Western Australia
Western Australia deals with landscape through the Residential Design Codes made under State Planning Policy 7.3. For apartments, Volume 2 contains Element 3.3, “Tree canopy and deep soil areas”, which sets element objectives for retaining existing trees, improving or offsetting canopy loss, and providing deep soil areas with sufficient area and volume to sustain healthy plant and tree growth. The deep soil requirements are in the policy’s own tables, and Volume 2 also carries consequential amendments flowing from the medium density amendments to Volume 1.
The structural feature of the Western Australian codes worth understanding is that they are assessed on a performance basis. The acceptable outcomes are not deemed to comply solutions in the way a Victorian standard is: a proposal is assessed in the context of the whole design solution to determine whether the element objectives are achieved. That is more flexible than a hard percentage, and it is also less predictable, because it leaves the decision maker room to conclude that a compliant area does not meet the objective. The practical consequence is that the width and usability of a deep soil area tends to matter more in Western Australia than the raw percentage, and a pre-lodgement conversation carries more weight than it does in a deemed-to-comply jurisdiction.
The current figures sit in the policy documents themselves, which is where to confirm them for a specific project.
South Australia
South Australia runs two separate mechanisms, one for existing trees and one for new canopy.
Existing trees are controlled through the regulated and significant tree provisions under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (SA). PlanSA’s guidance sets the thresholds by trunk circumference measured 1 metre above natural ground level: a regulated tree has a single trunk with a circumference of 1 metre or more, or multiple trunks totalling 1 metre or more with an average circumference of 310 millimetres or more; a significant tree has a single trunk with a circumference of 2 metres or more, or multiple trunks totalling 2 metres or more with an average circumference of 625 millimetres or more. Damaging a regulated tree is itself development requiring approval, which captures removal, killing, lopping, ringbarking, topping and substantial root damage. Removing more than 30 per cent of a tree’s crown, or repeated pruning within a five year period, also requires approval. Where approval is granted, the replacement condition is generally two trees for a regulated tree and three for a significant tree, or a payment into the relevant urban tree fund.
New canopy is dealt with through the Urban Tree Canopy Off-set Scheme, which applies in the Housing Diversity Neighbourhood Zone, the Urban Renewal Neighbourhood Zone, the City Living Zone, and areas with a designated soil type. The scheme is elective: an applicant may choose to plant a tree or to pay into the fund in lieu of planting. PlanSA publishes the contribution amounts as $533 for a small tree of 4 metres mature height, $1,065 for a medium tree of 6 metres mature height and $1,598 for a large tree of 12 metres mature height.
The commercial significance of a published cash-out rate is that it puts a ceiling on the cost of non-compliance in the zones where it applies, which is unusual. On a small infill site where a tree would cost more in lost floor area than the contribution, the fund converts a design constraint into a line item. That is a calculation to run with the numbers on the table rather than a position to assume, and the eligibility conditions on the scheme are narrower than the headline suggests.
Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Capital Territory has the most prescriptive tree regime in the country. The Urban Forest Act 2023 (ACT), which is A2023-14 on the territory’s legislation register, commenced on 1 January 2024 and replaced the Tree Protection Act 2005. City Services publishes the operative detail on its tree protection laws pages.
City Services states that all trees on public land are protected trees, and that a tree on private land is protected if it is 8 metres or taller, has a canopy 8 metres or wider, has a trunk circumference of 1 metre or more at 1.4 metres above natural ground level, is listed on the ACT Tree Register, is a dead native tree on leased land with a trunk circumference of at least 1.88 metres at that height, or was planted in the last five years under a canopy contribution agreement. Those are alternatives, not cumulative conditions, which makes the threshold considerably easier to cross than the Victorian three-limb test.
The tree protection zone is defined broadly. City Services describes it as the area under the canopy, the 2 metre wide area surrounding the vertical projection of the canopy, the 4 metre wide area surrounding the trunk measured at 1 metre above ground level, and any area specified in an approved tree management plan. Because all public trees are protected, a street tree outside the boundary can constrain a crossover, a hoarding line or a service trench without ever appearing on the site survey as a constraint.
Three procedural features change a programme. Permission is required for work on or around a protected tree, including trees on neighbouring land. Tree management plans are compulsory in territory approval processes where the activity may affect a protected tree, and a bond may be required before the works can start, returned only if an assessment finds no breach. And removal generally runs through a signed canopy contribution agreement, with the territory publishing a tree calculator and determinations under the Urban Forest Regulation 2023 covering both on-site canopy contribution and financial settlement.
Two currency points. The Act was republished on 2 January 2026 following the expiry of its transitional provisions, so anything written against the transitional position is out of date. An Urban Forest and Planning Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 was before the Assembly at the date of writing, which makes the legislation register the place to check before relying on the current text.
Tasmania and the Northern Territory
Neither jurisdiction imposes a territory-wide numerical deep soil or canopy percentage on urban residential development that surfaced in this research. In Tasmania the residential development standards sit in the State Planning Provisions of the Tasmanian Planning Scheme with local provisions on top, and in the Northern Territory the controls sit in the Northern Territory Planning Scheme by zone. In both, the applicable scheme and any council policy are where the landscape requirement sits, and neither jurisdiction mirrors the eastern states.
How does the arborist’s work differ, and where does it bind?
The arborist assesses existing trees and the arborist’s report, not the landscape plan, is what usually decides whether a tree can go. The report identifies each tree, assigns a retention value, calculates the protection area required around it, and states what construction activity within that area the tree can tolerate.
The item that constrains the building is the tree protection zone, which is a calculated area around the trunk within which excavation, level change, storage and compaction are restricted. The zone is derived from the size of the tree, so a large mature tree generates a large exclusion area, and that area may sit across the line where a basement wall or a footing was intended to go. Australian Standard AS 4970 covers protection of trees on development sites and tends to be the document a council arborist assesses the report against. Australian Standard AS 2303 covers tree stock for landscape use, which is what the planting schedule is checked against at supply.
Two practical points follow.
- The arborist’s report is a due diligence document, not a documentation-stage document. Commissioning it after the design is fixed converts a survey exercise into a redesign. On a site with significant vegetation, the report commissioned after exchange is answering a question the price has already been set on.
- A protection zone that crosses a neighbour’s boundary is still a constraint. A large tree on adjoining land can have a protection zone extending well into the subject site, and it is not the developer’s tree to remove.
Where does landscape actually hit the feasibility?
In four places, and the first is much larger than the other three combined.
Lost basement area. This is the real cost. Worked through on a 1,800 square metre Sydney site of 30 metres frontage by 60 metres depth, assessed against the Apartment Design Guide deep soil design criteria:
- The deep soil requirement is 7 per cent of 1,800 square metres, which is 126 square metres, with a minimum dimension of 6 metres because the site exceeds 1,500 square metres.
- Configured as a 6 metre deep strip across the full 30 metre width, the deep soil area is 180 square metres. That comfortably satisfies the 126 square metre minimum and meets the width test.
- No basement level can extend under that 180 square metres. Across two basement levels, 360 square metres of basement floor area is unavailable.
- Basement efficiency is commonly quoted around 30 to 35 square metres per car space once ramps, aisles, services and plant are allowed for. At 30 square metres, 360 square metres is 12 spaces; at 35, it is closer to 10. The quantity surveyor’s or the traffic consultant’s figure for the actual layout is the one to carry.
Twelve spaces is the difference between a two-level and a three-level basement on many schemes, or between the scheme as drawn and a smaller one.
Now change one input. Configure the deep soil as a 7 metre by 18 metre pocket rather than a full-width strip. That is 126 square metres, exactly the minimum, and it still satisfies the 6 metre minimum dimension.
- Basement area lost per level falls from 180 to 126 square metres, a saving of 54 square metres per level.
- Over two basement levels that is 108 square metres recovered, which is 3.6 spaces at the same 30 square metres per space.
The pocket is not automatically the better answer. A compact pocket may not suit the canopy trees the same scheme has to plant, it concentrates rather than distributes the landscape amenity, and a council landscape officer may prefer the strip because it aligns with rear boundary tree retention and with canopy connectivity across adjoining backyards. The point is that the choice between the two is worth three to four car spaces and it is made at concept, by a landscape architect, before the architect fixes the basement. The same discipline applies to how gross floor area, net lettable area and saleable area are being counted in the first place.
Landscape construction cost. A line in the cost plan, driven by area, the proportion on structure and the specification. Planting on structure costs materially more than planting at grade because of the waterproofing, drainage cell, root barrier and soil import, and roof-level landscape brings load implications back into the structural design. The quantity surveyor’s cost plan is where this number comes from rather than a rate carried forward from a previous project, since the mix of at-grade and on-structure landscape varies enormously between schemes with superficially similar areas. It sits inside the total development cost alongside the rest of the construction budget.
Consultant fees. Landscape architecture fees on a residential project are commonly quoted either as a lump sum by stage or as a percentage of the landscape construction budget, and the spread is wide because the scope varies from a single development application plan to full documentation, public domain interface and contract administration. Fee spreads on this line are wide enough that a rate carried forward from another project tells you very little, and the arborist’s scope is commonly priced separately.
Time. The cost that does not appear in the cost plan. A landscape plan that fails a deep soil or canopy calculation triggers a request for information, and a request for information on a calculation usually means a redesign of the ground plane rather than an amended drawing. On a site where holding costs are running, that delay is frequently larger than the entire landscape consultant fee. Those holding costs flow straight through the development cashflow.
When do developers engage the landscape architect?
At one of two points, and the choice decides what the consultant is for. Engaged before the site is bought, the landscape architect is producing an input: the deep soil and canopy geometry that the concept is then drawn around. Engaged after the architect has fixed the basement, the same consultant is documenting a design that is already set, and any control that does not fit becomes a redesign rather than a constraint.
Schemes that end up redesigning a basement after lodgement have usually fixed the basement before the deep soil geometry was established. The order that avoids that outcome runs survey and arborist walk-over, then landscape architect to set the deep soil and canopy areas as fixed geometry, then architect and basement engineer working within what is left.
A pre-lodgement meeting with the council’s landscape officer is where the difference between a compliant area and an accepted area tends to get resolved, particularly in jurisdictions assessed on a performance basis, because that difference is often a conversation about width, species and connectivity rather than a number.
What applies in New Zealand?
New Zealand takes a materially different position on existing urban trees, and it is close to the opposite of the Australian trend.
Under section 76 of the Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ), a district plan rule may prohibit or restrict the felling, trimming, damaging or removal of a tree on a single urban environment allotment only if that allotment is specifically identified in a schedule to the plan by street address or legal description, or both. The effect is that blanket tree protection rules cannot apply to urban environment allotments. A tree is either individually scheduled, or a group of trees is scheduled as a cluster, grove or line at a precise identified location, or it is not protected by a district plan rule at all. The provision is at section 76 of the Act.
For a developer, that converts tree due diligence in New Zealand into a schedule check rather than a species and size assessment: the question is whether the tree is listed, not how big it is. Reserve land and road reserve fall outside the urban environment allotment definition, so street trees are not affected by the restriction and remain subject to council control. The Resource Management Act is in the course of being replaced, so the provision’s continuation is a matter to confirm at the time rather than to assume.
What to ask your landscape architect
- What is the deep soil area required on this site, in square metres, and what is the minimum dimension, and does the shape we have drawn satisfy both?
- Which parts of our landscape area do not count toward deep soil or canopy, and why?
- What canopy percentage or tree count applies, and can we satisfy it through the planting rate route or the canopy percentage route, whichever is cheaper in floor area?
- Which existing trees are doing the most work in the canopy calculation, and what does the scheme look like if each of them cannot be retained?
- Does the council’s development control plan or local scheme ask for more than the state instrument, and if so by how much?
- Does a green factor score or equivalent tool apply here, and what score do we have to reach?
- What soil volume does each proposed tree need, and does the planter build-up on structure actually deliver it at the levels the architect has set?
- What is the maintenance and establishment obligation likely to be imposed as a condition, how long does it run, and what bond should we allow for?
- What is the realistic risk that this calculation attracts a request for information, and what would you change to reduce it?
What to ask your arborist
- What is the tree protection zone for each retained tree, in metres from the trunk, and where does it cross the proposed basement or footing line?
- Which trees on adjoining land have protection zones extending into our site?
- What construction methodology would let us build inside a protection zone, and would a council arborist accept it?
- What is your honest assessment of each retained tree’s survival prospects through construction, as distinct from its retention value on paper?
- Which trees meet the relevant statutory threshold, given the measurement method the applicable legislation uses?
What to ask your town planner
- Which instrument governs landscape on this site, and does anything else apply on top of it?
- Has the applicable control changed recently, and is there a transitional provision tied to a lodgement date we should be working toward?
- If we meet every applicable standard, does that remove third party appeal rights here?
- Is there a cash-out, offset or contribution pathway available in this jurisdiction, and what are its eligibility conditions?
- What has this council actually accepted on comparable sites recently, and what has it refused?
Where to confirm the current position
Landscape controls are moving faster than most planning controls at the moment, and several of the instruments above changed within the last eighteen months. The primary sources are: the Apartment Design Guide and the low and mid-rise guidance in New South Wales; the department’s canopy tree guidance in Victoria; Volume 2 of the Residential Design Codes in Western Australia; PlanSA in South Australia; the Urban Forest Act 2023 in the Australian Capital Territory; the relevant council’s planning scheme in Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory; and section 76 of the Resource Management Act 1991 in New Zealand. On any specific site, the applicable development control plan or local scheme is the document that decides the number, and it is the one most likely to be more demanding than the state position.
Landscape sits in the same category as access, acoustics and waste: a set of constraints that cost almost nothing to design around at concept and a great deal to design around after a basement is fixed. The difference with landscape is that it is the only one of them that takes area off the site itself, which is why it tends to land in the highest and best use test rather than in the finishes package.