NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer: how to check a property

The NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer is the NSW Government's free online map of planning controls for every address and lot in the state. Search an address or lot, and it highlights the land and lists the planning matters that affect it: the zone, height and floor space limits, minimum lot size, heritage and hazard layers. It can also generate a free Property Report as a PDF. Here is how to use it step by step, and where its answers stop.

LayeredGeo is not part of the NSW Planning Portal or the NSW Government. The Spatial Viewer is a free government tool and the best place to start for LEP maps in NSW.

How to open the Spatial Viewer

Go to planningportal.nsw.gov.au/spatialviewer, or click "Find a Property" on the NSW Planning Portal home page. You may be asked to accept the terms and conditions first. No login is needed to look up a property.

The screen has three parts: the map in the middle, a left panel for searching and for layers and legends, and a right panel with map tools and the planning results for the land you have selected.

Step 1: Find the property

In the search box on the left, choose how you want to search: Address (the default), Lot, LGA (council area) or POI (point of interest). Start typing and pick the right match from the list. The map zooms to the land and outlines it with a yellow border.

If you only know roughly where the land is, open the map tools on the right, switch on Search on map, zoom in to street level and click the lot.

Tip: search by lot and DP number when you have it from the contract. One address can cover more than one lot, and the lot is what the planning controls apply to.

Step 2: Read the planning controls for the lot

Once the land is selected, the right panel lists the planning matters affecting it. Click the arrow next to any item to expand it. For example, expand Height of Building to see the maximum building height that applies. Some items link straight to the relevant planning instrument on the NSW legislation website.

The headline controls from the council's Local Environmental Plan (LEP) are:

• Land zoning, such as R2 Low Density Residential, which sets what the land can be used for.
• Height of buildings and floor space ratio, which limit the size of what can be built.
• Minimum lot size, which matters if you are thinking of subdividing.
• Heritage, including LEP heritage items and conservation areas, and State Heritage Register curtilages.

Step 3: Turn on the LEP maps and hazard layers

The left panel controls what is drawn on the map. To show zoning across the street, open Principal Planning Layers and tick Land Zoning. If you cannot find a layer, type part of its name in Filter layer.

Beyond the principal planning layers, the layer list includes hazard and protection maps such as Bushfire Prone Land, the Flood Planning Map, Landslide Risk Land, Acid Sulfate Soils and Salinity. These only show something where the council or state has mapped them, so an empty map is not the same as a clear site. Use the opacity control to see the aerial photo under a layer, and look at the neighbouring lots as well as your own. If acid sulfate soils come up, our guide to acid sulfate soils in QLD and NSW explains what each class means for a build.

The Measurement tool in the map tools measures a distance or area on the map, which is handy for a rough check of frontage or block size.

Step 4: Generate the free Property Report

With the property selected, click the Generate Property Report icon. A PDF downloads with a summary of planning controls, detailed planning information and other matters affecting the property. If nothing happens, allow pop-ups for the site and try again.

It is free, so run it for every property on your shortlist.

What the Spatial Viewer does not tell you

The Portal's own terms are worth knowing before you rely on it.

• It is for reference only. The terms say that until content on the Portal is certified, it should be treated as being for reference only. The official planning maps are the ones adopted with each planning instrument.
• It can lag behind the law. The Department tries to update the spatial data within two weeks of changes to the official LEP maps, so a very recent amendment may not show yet.
• Some layers are not statutory. Layers marked "non-EPI" are not regulated by a planning instrument, and the Portal tells you to contact the council for the latest information.
• It is not a section 10.7 planning certificate. The certificate is issued by the council and is the document attached to a contract for sale. Our guide to reading a section 10.7 certificate covers what each part means.

There are also questions a planning viewer was never built to answer:

• How deep a flood gets. The Flood Planning Map shows the area where flood-related planning controls apply. It does not give a modelled flood depth or velocity for the lot, and stormwater overland flow is often mapped separately by councils, if at all.
• What the ground is like. Soil reactivity, geology, fill and groundwater bore records are not planning layers. They drive footing design and earthworks cost, and you will not find them in the Spatial Viewer.
• Everything in one document. The viewer covers planning maps. Water, sewer and stormwater mains, easements on the title, slope and past aerial photos all mean visiting other sites.

All the planning layers for an address in one PDF

The Spatial Viewer is the official source for NSW planning maps, so use it. If you want the planning layers for an address together with other site data in one document, LayeredGeo's Property Report pulls zoning, flood, bushfire, heritage, vegetation and environmental overlays into a single PDF, with a map and a plain-English note for each. It also shows registered easements, contours, the water, sewer and stormwater mains the utilities publish, and development applications on and around the lot from the NSW Planning Portal data. The map preview is free and the PDF is $9. Pop in your address or check out a sample report.

Common questions

How do I find the zoning of a property in NSW? Open the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer, search the address or lot and DP, and select the property. The right panel lists the land zoning along with the other LEP controls, and you can tick Land Zoning under Principal Planning Layers to see the zones on the map.

Is the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer free? Yes. It is a free NSW Government tool, you do not need an account to look up a property, and the Property Report it generates is a free PDF.

Is the Spatial Viewer property report the same as a 10.7 certificate? No. The Spatial Viewer report is a reference summary of the mapped planning controls. A section 10.7 planning certificate is issued by the council and is the document attached to a contract for sale.

Does the Spatial Viewer show if a property is flood prone? It shows the Flood Planning Map where the council's LEP includes one, which marks where flood-related planning controls apply. It does not show modelled flood depth, and some councils map overland flow separately, so check with the council as well.

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. 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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