Brisbane City Plan interactive mapping: how to use it

City Plan online is Brisbane City Council's free, official version of Brisbane City Plan 2014, the planning scheme for the whole Brisbane local government area. It pairs the scheme text with an interactive map, and you can open it at cityplan.brisbane.qld.gov.au/eplan. To check a property, search the address, open the map, and read the zone and overlays that apply to the lot. Here is how to do it, what the map shows, and what it leaves out.

LayeredGeo is not part of Brisbane City Council or the Queensland Government. City Plan online is a free council tool and the right place to start for Brisbane zoning and planning overlays.

How to find a property on the City Plan map

1. Open City Plan online. The home page has a search bar, with "View Planning Scheme" and "View Map" links underneath it. There is no account to create.
2. Choose what you are searching for. The search bar has a drop-down next to "Address". For a property you can search by address, lot on plan, street or suburb. Pick the matching option before you type, because typing a suburb while "Address" is selected gives a wrong result.
3. Select your result from the drop-down list that appears as you type. The map opens with the property highlighted, and it shows only the mapping layers and scheme sections that apply to that property.
4. Use the map tools panel to switch layers on and off. Zones sit in one group and overlays in another, so you can look at one at a time.
5. Follow the links from the results to the scheme text for the zone or overlay, so you can read what it actually requires.

Tip: look at the lots next door and across the street as well as your own. A flood or character overlay that stops at your boundary still tells you something about the area.

What the map shows

The map is organised into layer groups: Zones, Boundaries and labels, Overlays, Neighbourhood plans, the Local government infrastructure plan (LGIP), and Basemaps. For a buyer, the first three matter most.

• Zone. The zone says what the land is meant to be used for, such as a residential, centre, industrial or conservation zone, and it points to the zone code that sets the building rules.
• Overlays. These flag features that bring extra requirements on top of the zone. The ones buyers meet most often include the Flood overlay (which includes an overland flow flood planning area), the Bushfire overlay, the Dwelling house character overlay, heritage mapping and the Acid sulfate soils overlay. There are others as well, and the overlay layer list in the map shows which ones exist.
• Neighbourhood plans. Local area plans with extra rules for particular parts of Brisbane, such as taller or denser buildings near some centres.

The tool also has a property report, a short summary of the City Plan requirements that apply to a site. It can compare the current version of the scheme with older versions from version 14 onwards, which is useful if you want to see what changed. The Terms and Conditions of Use apply to everything you see, so skim them once.

If you want to see a suburb at a glance rather than one lot at a time, our Brisbane flood map by suburb page shades every Brisbane suburb by its mapped flood share.

What City Plan online does not tell you

• It is not a formal planning certificate or approval. The map shows what the scheme says, but only the council can advise on how it applies to a specific proposal. For a firm answer on a development, contact the council and ask for a Planning Information Officer (07 3403 8888).
• A flood overlay is not a flood level. The Flood overlay shows where the scheme applies flood requirements. How deep the water is modelled to get on your lot, and the flood levels used for floor heights, come from the council's separate FloodWise Property Report. Our guide to how to read a FloodWise Property Report explains it.
• No overlay does not mean no risk. Land outside a mapped overlay can still be hit by local drainage problems or later changes to the mapping.
• Amendments can change the answer. The scheme is updated through amendments, and the news panel on the home page shows consultation and new versions. Check that you are looking at the current version.
• Ground conditions are not planning layers. Soil reactivity, fill and groundwater drive footing design and slab cost. The Acid sulfate soils overlay is a start, but it is not a site classification. Our guide to Brisbane site classification covers what the ground does.
• Title matters come from the title. Easements, covenants and other interests are on the title, not in the planning scheme.

Putting the planning layers in one PDF

City Plan online is the official source, so start there. If you are comparing several properties, or want the planning layers plus other site data together, LayeredGeo's Property Report puts zoning, flood, bushfire, heritage, vegetation and environmental overlays for an address into one PDF, with a map and a plain-English note for each, alongside contours, registered easements and the water, sewer and stormwater mains the utilities publish. The map preview is free and the PDF is $9. Pop in your address or check out a sample report.

If you are building, a separate geotechnical desktop study covers the geology, soils, indicative soil reactivity range and groundwater for the address. It does not replace a site investigation, which is what decides the site classification.

Common questions

Is Brisbane City Plan online free to use? Yes. City Plan online is a free Brisbane City Council service. You search an address, open the map and read the zone and overlays with no account and no fee.

How do I find the zoning of a Brisbane property? Open City Plan online, search the address (or lot on plan) and view the map. The Zones layer shows the zone for the lot, with a link to the scheme text.

Does the City Plan map show how deep a flood would be? No. It shows the Flood overlay, including overland flow areas, but not modelled depth. Flood levels for a property come from the separate FloodWise Property Report.

Is the City Plan property report the same as a planning certificate? No. It is a short summary of the City Plan requirements for a site. Only the council can advise on how the scheme applies to a particular development proposal.

LayeredGeo's Property Report pulls together public planning and site data for property due diligence across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and Tasmania, so you can understand a place before you commit.

About this article. Published by LayeredGeo and written from the published research cited in the Sources section above. It is general information about how property and ground conditions are assessed in Australia, not engineering, planning, legal or financial advice, and it is not specific to any property. Check anything that matters against the source dataset or a suitably qualified professional before you rely on it. If you spot something wrong, tell us at hello@layeredgeo.com.au and we will fix it.

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