Tasmanian planning codes and the section 337 certificate

The Tasmanian Planning Scheme is the State Planning Provisions plus one Local Provisions Schedule for each council. Hazards and heritage are handled through codes, not overlays, and a code only bites where a map or a rule brings land into it.

One scheme, with one exception

The State Planning Provisions apply across the state. Each council's Local Provisions Schedule carries its own maps and local rules, so the same code can be mapped in one council and not in another. Kingborough is the one council not yet on the scheme. The Planning Commission's status page, updated on 23 June 2026, shows its schedule still being assessed, so the Kingborough Interim Planning Scheme 2015 still applies there. For a Kingborough address our report reads that scheme and states its findings in its own words. If the interim map gives no zone for the address, the address is refused before payment.

The codes

Each code has a number or a name. C6 is the Local Historic Heritage Code, C13 the Bushfire-Prone Areas Code and C15 the Landslip Hazard Code. The flood, coastal inundation and coastal erosion codes work from maps in each Local Provisions Schedule, and the coastal codes and the landslip code use hazard bands. A separate code, the Potentially Contaminated Land Code, applies to land whose past use may have contaminated it.

Bushfire

Under the Bushfire-Prone Areas Code, where a Local Provisions Schedule has no overlay map, land within 100 metres of bushfire-prone vegetation of one hectare or more is a bushfire-prone area. The code mostly matters for subdivision and for vulnerable or hazardous uses. The building rules can also treat land as bushfire-prone where the planning map does not show it, so an absence on the map is not a finding that the land is clear. For how New South Wales handles the same question, see bush fire prone land.

Landslip

The landslip code works in bands: Low, Medium (active or inactive) and High. State Planning Provisions Amendment 01/2024 rewrote part of it so that what is required depends on the band and on the type of work. Declared landslip areas are a separate restriction in law under the Mineral Resources Development Act 1995, kept by Mineral Resources Tasmania, and are not the same as the planning code.

Flood

The Flood-Prone Areas Hazard Code is a trigger for assessment, not a flood risk model. It works from the overlay map in each Local Provisions Schedule, and not every schedule maps it. Overland flow is often not in it. Kingborough's interim scheme maps coastal inundation only.

Heritage

The Local Historic Heritage Code covers local heritage places, local heritage precincts, local historic landscape precincts, places of archaeological potential and significant trees. Each is listed in the council's Local Provisions Schedule. It does not cover Aboriginal heritage. It does not apply to a place on the Tasmanian Heritage Register, kept under the Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995, except for works to significant trees. A local listing is not a Register listing. Compare heritage in New South Wales and Victoria.

The section 337 certificate

A land information certificate under section 337 of the Local Government Act 1993 (Tasmania) is issued by the council, and states what its records hold for the land. It is not a list of hazards, and what it says about planning depends on what the council holds. It is a different Act from the Local Government (Building and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1993. The fee is set in fee units, so the dollar amount changes each year; the council's current schedule has it.

The LIST (thelist.tas.gov.au), run by the Tasmanian Government, is a map index showing zones and code overlay layers. It is not the legal scheme and it is not a certificate.

What our report shows, and does not

For a Tasmanian address the report has a row for each of bushfire, flood, landslip, coastal inundation, coastal erosion, local heritage, declared landslip areas, the Tasmanian Heritage Register and contamination. Each points to the council and to its land information certificate under section 337. We do not order or issue the certificate.

Where a council's schedule maps no such code, the row says nobody has mapped it there and that this is not a finding that the land is clear. Where the schedule is mapped and the land is outside it, the row says the land is outside the mapped area. The flood row is the planning map only. The report does not read Kingborough's land under the Tasmanian Planning Scheme, because the scheme does not apply there yet. For other states see what “unmapped” means. Tasmanian councils are on the Tasmanian council pages and the Tasmanian hazard map.

Reports from $9.90 including GST, paid once. The price belongs to the jurisdiction the address is in. The check is free: it tells you the exact total for your address, and which registers cover it, before you pay anything.