Minimum Garden Area for Subdivisions in Melbourne
Planning to Subdivide? Minimum garden areas now required!
Minimum garden areas were introduced by the State Government in March this year and affect areas zoned Neighbourhood Residential Zone and the General Residential Zone.
What is the Garden area requirement?
Minimum areas have now been determined and are required to be met when developing land. In brief, a minimum percentage of land must be provided for garden areas at ground level as follows:-
Note that the requirements only apply to land in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone and General Residential Zone.
The definition of a garden area is given as:
An uncovered outdoor area of a dwelling or residential building normally associated with a garden. A garden area does not include driveways, car parking areas, buildings or roofed areas and any area that has a dimension of less than 1 metre. It does include open entertainment areas, decks, lawns, garden beds, swimming pools, tennis courts and the like.
This applies to all new subdivisions and development, but does not apply to existing dwellings.
What does this mean to you?
The current definition is very loosely defined. It can be expected that developers and builders and council will all have differing interpretations of the definition. Ultimately should you not agree with council’s interpretation, an application for the matter to be resolved can be made to VCAT.