Almost all land in a New South Wales council area is zoned, usually by the council's local environmental plan (LEP). The zone decides which uses the land may be put to without development consent, which need consent, and which are prohibited. To find a property's zone, enter the address in the NSW Planning Portal's Spatial Viewer; the council's section 10.7 planning certificate is the authoritative statement.
Every LEP is made in the form of the state's Standard Instrument, so zone names are the same across the state. What each zone permits is not. The Standard Instrument fixes each zone's name, its core objectives and a short list of uses it must allow, and each council's land use table fills in the rest. R2 in one council does not permit exactly what R2 in the next council does.
On 1 December 2021 the environment protection zones, E1 to E4, became the conservation zones, C1 to C4. On 26 April 2023 the employment zones commenced: five employment zones, E1 to E5, and supporting zones, which together replaced the business (B) and industrial (IN) zones. A certificate, listing or development approval that says "E2" may mean Environmental Conservation rather than Commercial Centre, depending on its date.
The NSW Planning Portal's Spatial Viewer takes an address or a lot and shows the zoning and the other planning layers mapped for it. The authoritative statement is the section 10.7(2) planning certificate: the Regulation requires it to identify the zone, and to state what may be carried out in it without consent, what needs consent and what is prohibited.
A zone is where the question starts, not the answer to "can I build this". State environmental planning policies also apply and can allow or restrict development whatever the zone; the certificate names each instrument that applies, including draft ones that have been publicly exhibited. The council's development control plan adds setbacks, site coverage and design rules. The minimum lot size, height and floor space ratio are separate maps. And the zone is about this land only: what is zoned over the back fence decides what may be built there.
For a New South Wales address the report gives the zone code and name read from the LEP's land zoning map, with the map's currency date, and names the principal LEP. It lists the other zones mapped within 40 metres of the lot. Where no zone is mapped for the address, it says so and names the planning certificate as the place to get it.
It does not reproduce the land use table, so it does not tell you whether a particular use is permitted. It does not list state environmental planning policies, draft rezonings or the development control plan, and it is not a planning certificate. The hazard map and the council pages show what is mapped in each council area.
Check an addressReports from $9.90 including GST, paid once. The price belongs to the jurisdiction the address is in; the check is free and tells you the exact total for your address, and which registers cover it, before you pay anything.
A land zone in New South Wales is the zone applied to land by the Land Zoning Map of a local environmental plan. The plan's land use table sets, for each zone, the objectives for development and the development that is permitted without consent, permitted with consent, and prohibited.
Zone names come from the Standard Instrument local environmental plan: rural (RU1 to RU6), residential (R1 to R5), employment (E1 to E5), mixed use (MU1), conservation (C1 to C4), recreation (RE1 and RE2), special purpose (SP1 to SP5) and waterways (W1 to W4). The uses permitted in a zone vary between councils. A section 10.7(2) planning certificate states the zone that applies to the land and the uses permitted in it.
General information about New South Wales registers. Not legal, planning or valuation advice for any particular property.