Victoria Australia now allows Granny Flats without a permit

[Jake]

If you're someone who happens to live in Victoria Australia and own property, you can now establish your very own granny flat on your property without the need for a planning permit. For those wondering what a Granny flat is, it's a smaller house on an existing property, usually alongside another house. They are usually called Accessory Dwelling Units or ADU's for short. This should streamline the process for property owners in the estimated 700,000 residential zone lots in the state.

This means that property owners can now build a small second home that is up to 60 square meters in size on the same lot as long as the property is 300 square meters or larger. As well, these reforms apply to an estimated 2,450 properties in rural areas that don't have overlays. Though, planning permits are still required for those properties in flood or bushfire-prone areas.

The main intention of this reform plan, is to create up to 800,000 new homes over the next 10 years. The intent is to keep families together for generations. These families can use these second homes for whatever they like, or they can rent them to friends and other tenants.

One last thing, though planning permits aren't required anymore, you may still need to file standard building permits along with complying with siting, design and amenity requirements. Read more about this news here - Sky News

 

[Winny]

This should help move the needle faster to that 800,000+ home plan they are hoping to build up to. Would be something if they succeed in building that many homes in just 10 years. I'd love to build a smaller second home on my property. Reminds me of what the small/tiny home community is doing here in the US and elsewhere.

 

[Nomad]

I was not aware of the term Granny flat. After reading this news, I feel that by allowing homeowners with enough land on their property to construct a second home in their property, the government is trying to push forward a joint family structure. I think this is good for the society in general.

 

[Eric]

Reminds me of what the small/tiny home community is doing here in the US and elsewhere.

@Jake had a great article on tiny home permitting a little while back. As Jake discussed in that article, tiny home permitting is generally allowed under each local jurisdiction's rules for accessory dwelling units. This makes sense from a planning perspective because when you build a tiny home on land already zoned for residential, you're essentially piggybacking off planning that was completed for the original residential development. It's great that Victoria, Australia is taking advantage of the streamlining inherent in ADUs sited in residentially zoned areas and eliminating the planning permit requirement entirely.

The article mentions that the ADU planning permit exemption applies to "2,450 properties in rural zones with no overlays." I thought it was great hearing how aggressive the Victorian government appears to have been applying the exemption, ensuring that it extends even to properties with special zoning rules. Specifically, the article mentions that no planning permits will be required if the ADU would be located "in a heritage overlay, neighbourhood character overlay or design and development overlay".