Every property in New South Wales is governed by a Local Environmental Plan (LEP). ZoneDSS resolves it for any address — zone, height, FSR, overlays, constraints, approval likelihood — and aggregates the picture by suburb and council.
Featured suburbs
Top suburbs ranked by sales volume and DA activity over the past 24 months — the ones property buyers, owners, and developers are looking at most often.
Browse by council
Each council writes its own LEP and DCP. Click through to see every suburb in that council and the planning rules that apply.
Showing top 25 of 131 New South Wales councils. Browse all coming soon.
New South Wales planning system
Every property in New South Wales is governed by three layers of planning controls that must be read together. ZoneDSS resolves the lot.
Each council's primary planning instrument. Sets the zone, building height, Floor Space Ratio, minimum lot size, permitted uses, and prohibited uses. There are 131 LEPs across New South Wales.
Authority: council, made under the EP&A Act.
Made by the New South Wales Government to override or supplement LEPs on specific topics — housing diversity, infrastructure, biodiversity, exempt and complying development, transport-oriented development, and more.
Authority: NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.
The council's detailed design guide — setbacks, materials, parking, landscaping, solar access, character statements. Not strict law but used to assess every application against the LEP.
Authority: council, prepared as guidance to the LEP.
All three resolved for any address.
Every control that applies to the lot — zone, overlays, and design rules — extracted, scored, and cited to source. No more reading multiple documents in multiple browser tabs.
FAQs
An LEP (Local Environmental Plan) is the principal planning instrument for each council — it sets zones, height, FSR, and permitted uses. A SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy) is made by the NSW state government and overrides or supplements LEPs on specific topics (housing, infrastructure, biodiversity, etc.). A DCP (Development Control Plan) is the council's detailed design guide — setbacks, materials, parking, landscaping — that fleshes out the LEP. Together they decide what can be built on any given lot.
Every New South Wales property has a zone set by its council's LEP. You can check the official New South Wales Planning Portal map, or generate a ZoneDSS planning report for the address — which returns the zone plus all the development controls, overlays, and constraints that apply, all cited to source clauses.
The Standard Instrument (Local Environmental Plans) Order 2006 is the template every NSW council must use when writing its LEP. It defines the standard zones (R1, R2, R3, C1, C4, MU1, etc.), standard land-use definitions, and standard clauses — so a property in one council reads the same way as one in another. Councils can modify some local provisions, but the structure is consistent statewide.
Across New South Wales, council DA processing time depends heavily on application complexity, council backlog, and whether referrals to other agencies are required. Median times range from ~50 days for straightforward residential alterations to 200+ days for complex multi-dwelling developments. Each suburb page on ZoneDSS shows the council's actual DA approval rate over the last 24 months.
Across New South Wales, 162,124 of 187,713 DAs were approved over the past 24 months — an approval rate of 86%. Rates vary widely by council and application type. Each suburb page breaks down the local approval rate for that council.
ZoneDSS aggregates data from the New South Wales ePlanning Portal (LEPs, DCPs, SEPPs, DA history), NSW Property Sales Information (sale prices and history), NSW Spatial Services and EPA registers (heritage, flood, bushfire, contaminated land, TEC overlays), and ABS Census 2021 (population, age, income, tenure). Every figure on every suburb page is computed from authoritative sources and cited.
Suburb and council stats are useful for context. For a buy-or-walk decision on a specific lot, you need every control, every constraint, and every clause cited to source.
Run a report — from A$2914-section report · LEP + SEPP + DCP cross-referenced · cited to source
LGA-level totals aggregated from New South Wales suburb-level planning records. Sources: NSW Local Environmental Plans, State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs), Development Control Plans, the NSW ePlanning Portal (DA history), NSW Property Sales Information, NSW Spatial Services overlays (heritage, flood, bushfire, contamination, TEC, sea-level rise, flight noise), and ABS Census 2021. Aggregated by ZoneDSS · last updated 2026-04-01.
These are state and council-level summaries — your specific lot may vary. Always run a planning report on the actual address before making a decision. How ZoneDSS works →