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Service areas / Woollahra
Planning advice and development applications across the Woollahra local government area — Paddington, Woollahra, Edgecliff, Double Bay, Darling Point, Point Piper, Bellevue Hill, Rose Bay, Vaucluse and Watsons Bay. Heritage, foreshore and view sharing decide most applications here, and they need to be dealt with before a design is settled.
Talk about your Woollahra siteLast updated: 4 August 2026 · Written by Dr George Greiss
We act for owners, architects and builders on eastern suburbs sites. The work has run from alterations and additions to houses inside heritage conservation areas, through dual occupancy and multi dwelling proposals, secondary dwellings, change of use and fitout applications in the local centres, to section 4.55 modifications and building information certificates for work already carried out.
Client names, addresses and application numbers stay confidential — we describe the type of matter, never the site. The person who reviews your site is the person who writes the report and deals with Council.
Woollahra Local Environmental Plan 2014 is the principal instrument, in its current version for 17 July 2026. It is a short zoning schedule by Sydney standards — just ten zones. Residential land is R2 Low Density or R3 Medium Density, the centres are E1 Local Centre or MU1 Mixed Use, and the conservation land is C1 or C2. There is no R1, no R4 and no E2, E3 or E4 zone anywhere in the local government area, which is why so much of the development capacity here comes from state policy rather than from the LEP.
Woollahra Development Control Plan 2015 is organised by place, not by building type — the single most useful thing to understand before you start. There is no dual occupancy chapter. Which controls apply depends on where the site sits: Chapters B1 and B3 in the general residential precincts, Chapter B2 inside a neighbourhood heritage conservation area, Part C inside one of the three major conservation areas, and Part D inside a centre — D4 for Edgecliff, D5 for Double Bay, D6 for Rose Bay. Paddington and Watsons Bay are treated as conservation areas rather than centres. Amendment 37, which commenced on 24 February 2026, added Chapter B4 covering housing in accessible areas.
Woollahra does not run a duty planner. The only formal pre-lodgement channel is the paid pre-DA consultation service, where you meet assessment, heritage, landscape, engineering and environmental health officers together. The 2026-27 fees are $695 for alterations and additions up to a 50 per cent change in envelope, $1,385 for dwelling houses and larger additions, and $3,043 for new residential flat buildings and commercial buildings. The advice is not binding, but on a heritage or view-affected site it is usually money well spent.
Two bodies determine applications beyond staff delegation. The Application Assessment Panel, made up of senior Council staff, meets every Tuesday. The Woollahra Local Planning Panel meets on the first and third Thursday of each month. Ten or more unique objections will send an application to the panel — and the relevant Direction is explicit that a single household can lodge more than one unique submission — as will a contravention of a development standard by more than ten per cent, or of any non-numerical standard at all. There is no value threshold.
On the Department's most recent Faster Assessments figures, Woollahra averaged 96 assessment days in 2025-26, measured gross with no stop-the-clock. That is a 33 day improvement on the year before, and close to the middle of the eastern suburbs field — Randwick 69, Waverley 87, Bayside 102. It is worth noting the benchmark tightened to 95 days from 1 July 2026.
It means the character of the area is a matter for assessment, not that nothing can change. LEP clause 5.10 requires consent and a heritage assessment, and which DCP chapter applies depends on which conservation area you are in — Paddington, Woollahra and Watsons Bay each have their own, while the other twelve fall under Chapter B2. Being in a conservation area is different from being a listed item.
It can. The exclusion in the Housing SEPP applies to land that is, or contains, a heritage item — not to conservation areas, which the relevant chapter never mentions. So the policy is capable of applying inside a conservation area, while the LEP heritage clause continues to apply in full. Both propositions are routinely stated the wrong way round.
They can, and it may well matter. The DCP adopts the view sharing principles from Tenacity Consulting v Warringah Council, which grade the impact from negligible to devastating and ask whether the development is skilfully designed. Views over water and across side boundaries are treated differently. A view analysis prepared before the design is fixed is far cheaper than one prepared in response to an objection.
It depends where the structure sits. A boat shed, sea wall, swimming pool or waterfront access stairs below mean high water mark is determined under the Biodiversity and Conservation SEPP by the Minister for Planning, a function delegated to Council since March 2026. Jetties, moorings and works wholly below the water line follow a separate maritime pathway. LEP clause 6.4 governs the foreshore band above the water.
On a heritage, foreshore or view-affected site, usually yes. Woollahra has no duty planner, so the paid pre-DA consultation service is the only way to get Council's position before lodgement. Fees run from $695 for modest alterations to $3,043 for a new apartment or commercial building. The advice is not binding, but it surfaces objections while the design can still change cheaply.
Send through the address and what you have in mind. You will get a straight answer on the pathway, the constraints that matter and what it would take — and a fixed-fee quote if we go ahead.
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