Designing a Home
If you are considering building a new home in the Tweed Shire or considering making alterations and additions to your existing home including garages, carports, sheds, swimming pools etc,  Part A of Section A1 of Council's Development Control Plan (1295kb) provides detailed planning and design control guidelines.
Although the Development Control Plan is essentially a guide it has been prepared to improve the quality of building types setting out the objectives and design controls to be achieved. Your development application will be assessed against these controls and prescribed statutory considerations and any variations to the plan will need to demonstrate why a control cannot be met. It is therefore essential that your proposal is checked against these design controls during the planning phase and prior to lodging your application with Council. Council has also prepared a series of check lists that will assist you with this process and the lodgement requirements for your application. Please [ click here ] to visit our page containing links to the checklists and other information.
In addition to these design controls you will also need to identify if your land is situated in an area that is identified as bushfire prone. This may be done via  Council's Website Online Mapping Page or by contacting Councils Building and Environmental Health Unit. The legislation relating to building in bushfire prone areas was introduced in New South Wales in August 2002. It required the fire impact on buildings to be considered in the development assessment process for buildings and new subdivision proposals in bush fire prone areas. If the land is identified as bush fire prone the New South Wales Fire Services in conjunction with the Department of Planning have created a document called Planning for Bush Fire Protection which sets out specific design requirements for bush fire protection.
Further information in relation building in bush fire prone areas is available through the New South Wales Rural Fire Services Web Site.
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