latest articles

All land in Victoria is zoned for specific uses.  If you wish to check the zoning in your particular area, you can check with your local Council Planning Scheme which sets out the zones for the local Council area, which will include your property.  Zones are usually made up as follows; residential areas; commercial areas; industrial areas; business areas; open space and various other types of zonings.  Your local Council Planning Scheme will show whether or not you can develop in particular zones and the specific requirements for development of each particular zone.  This enables you to check whether or not you are entitled to develop or subdivide your property and whether or not you will require a Planning Permit to do so.  Each zone, as shown in your local Council Planning Scheme, contains a Land Use Control Table which outlines a number of land uses.  Make sure you read this before you decide what your land may or may not be able to be used for.

Using Zoning to maximise your returns

When it comes to obtaining the greatest possible return, you should be thinking of maximising zoning.  Therefore, at the point of searching for your deal, this should be uppermost in your mind.  For example, if you consider looking for property which allows you to combine more than one type of development, you will allow yourself the chance to increase your profit.  For example, you may decide you’d like to have some shops on the ground floor and/or offices on the first one to two floors, and then have apartments above them.  So you’d have to study the zonings relating to the piece of land you’re considering obtaining to establish whether or not this type of mixed-use development could apply.

As an example, you may have decided you’d like a particular piece of land close to the CBD.  It could be 3000m2.  When you are in the process of due diligence, you may find the local Council specify the zoning as residential.  If you have done preliminary research and looked into the demographics of the area, you may think you have enough information to support an application for maximising the zoning on that particular block of land.  If the zoning restricts your building to a five storey height, your application could make a request for the ground floor to be retail, the next two stories to be office space or professional space, and the top two stories to be residential; your aim is to remain within the local Council’s specifications but to get as much as you can possibly get out of the development.  Again, I’d suggest the importance of having the right consultants and advisers on your side.  Make sure your Town Planner utilises the benefit of his knowledge and understanding for your gain, after all, that’s what you’re paying him for.  Remember, research is of the utmost importance if you are to achieve a satisfactory outcome.  Providing you aim to work within the local Council’s perimeters, they will mostly look favourably at your proposal.  But you must always remember that it is your responsibility to provide enough information to support your application.  You cannot just go in to Council with a ‘good idea’.

An MCU, or Material Change of Use, is a term Councils use.  This means a change in the basic zoning, allowing for different criteria or requirements to be met, on a site in a particular area.  It would not be easy to change the zoning completely; i.e. trying to change an area that is zoned for heavy industrial to park land would be nigh on impossible.  But in submitting an application for mixed use, as we mentioned above, combining professional, retail and residential, and remaining within the boundaries of the local Council perimeters for the area, you stand a good chance of success.