Insights · Approvals · Eastern suburbs coast
The Coastal Management Act and Building in Sydney's East
On the coast, the ocean has a say in your design. The law just writes it down.
Bronte, Tamarama, Dover Heights, Clovelly, Maroubra. Owners here pay a lot for the view and then discover a layer of planning they've never heard of. It isn't a ban on building. It's a set of questions council has to ask, and a good design answers them before they're asked.
Short answer
How does the Coastal Management Act affect building in Sydney's eastern suburbs?
The Coastal Management Act 2016 maps the NSW coastal zone into four management areas. Planning controls for them sit in the Resilience and Hazards SEPP. If your lot is in the coastal environment or coastal use area, council must weigh impacts on public access, views, scenic character, heritage and coastal processes before approving a DA. Cliff-top sites often need geotechnical and coastal hazard reports too.
Written and reviewed by Oliver Alameri
Licensed builder, NSW Contractor Licence 487805C · Founder, Buildana
Fact-checked
Four areas, one coastal zone
The Act, in force since April 2018, replaced the old Coastal Protection Act. Section 5 defines the coastal zone as four overlapping management areas: coastal wetlands and littoral rainforests, the coastal vulnerability area, the coastal environment area, and the coastal use area. Each has its own objectives.
The Act itself doesn't approve or refuse your house. The maps and the development controls live in the State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021, and that's the document council applies when it assesses a DA on the coast.
For most eastern suburbs homes, the two that matter are the coastal environment area and the coastal use area. If your lot is mapped in either, the planning certificate will say so.
- Coastal wetlands and littoral rainforests area
- Coastal vulnerability area, for land exposed to coastal hazards
- Coastal environment area, near beaches, headlands and rock platforms
- Coastal use area, the developed land beside the coast
What council has to think about
For land in the coastal use area, section 2.11 of the SEPP lists what council must weigh. Safe public access to and along the beach, headland or rock platform. Overshadowing, wind funnelling and lost views from public places to the foreshore. The visual amenity and scenic qualities of the coast, headlands included. Aboriginal cultural heritage, and the built heritage of the street. Then the bulk, scale and size of what you're proposing. Across the whole coastal zone, section 2.12 adds one more test: the work mustn't increase the risk of coastal hazards on your land or anyone else's.
None of that is unusual for an eastern suburbs DA. What changes is the weight. A three-storey box that might sail through three streets back can struggle on a headland lot visible from the water.
My advice is to design for those questions from the first sketch. Step the form down the slope. Keep the roofline below the ridge of the headland where you can. Show the view corridors from public land, not just from your deck.
On a headland lot, the neighbours you have to satisfy include everyone on the beach.
Own a lot near the water?
Give me the street address. I'll look up how the lot is mapped under the coastal SEPP, note the other constraints, and list the reports you'll need before design starts.
0476 300 300Cliffs, slopes and the hazard reports
The Act's list of coastal hazards includes coastal cliff and slope instability, alongside beach erosion, shoreline recession and inundation. The sandstone cliffs from Bondi around to Maroubra and beyond are beautiful and, in places, undercut.
Council will often want a geotechnical report for a cliff-top or steep coastal site, and sometimes a coastal engineering assessment. Those reports shape the footings, the setback from the edge, how stormwater is disposed of so it doesn't saturate the cliff face, and how excavation is done without destabilising rock.
Get the geotechnical engineer on site before the architect draws a basement. It's cheaper to design around a joint in the sandstone than to discover it with an excavator.
Salt, wind and the materials that last
Planning aside, the ocean is hard on buildings. Salt spray corrodes steel, fixings, balustrades and air-conditioning units. Wind drives rain sideways into every joint.
Specify for it: marine-grade stainless or suitably coated fixings, powdercoat systems rated for coastal exposure, window systems tested for the wind loading your site attracts, and membranes detailed for rain that doesn't fall straight down. Check each manufacturer's warranty conditions, because many shorten or change within a certain distance of breaking surf.
The cheaper product that looks identical on the showroom floor can fail inside five years on a Bronte clifftop.
How approvals usually play out
Coastal mapping, heritage, steep sites and the sheer scale of many eastern suburbs homes mean most significant projects here are lodged with council as development applications rather than through the code-based path. Waverley, Woollahra and Randwick each apply their own LEP and DCP on top of the state policy.
Budget time for it. Pre-lodgement meetings are worth it on coastal lots, and a complete set of reports at lodgement saves a round of requests for more information. The three councils also share a coastal sediment compartment under the Act, called Sydney Eastern Beaches, which is why their coastal planning tends to point the same way.
Before you design on the eastern suburbs coast
Settle these first and the DA reads a lot more cleanly.
- 01
Planning certificate checked for coastal management area mapping
- 02
Geotechnical engineer on site for cliff-top or steep lots
- 03
View corridors from public land considered, not just your own
- 04
Stormwater plan that keeps water off the cliff face
- 05
Marine-rated materials, fixings and window systems specified
- 06
Pre-lodgement meeting booked with council
Coastal planning questions
Does the Coastal Management Act stop me building?
No. It sets objectives for different parts of the coast, and the planning controls that flow from it make council consider coastal impacts. Well-designed homes are approved on coastal lots all the time.
Where do I find out whether my lot is in a coastal management area?
Check the section 10.7 planning certificate and the NSW Planning Portal's spatial viewer, which shows the mapped areas under the Resilience and Hazards SEPP.
Can I use complying development on a coastal lot?
Sometimes, but coastal mapping, heritage and steep sites often rule it out or add requirements. Most substantial eastern suburbs projects end up as DAs.
Why would council want a geotechnical report?
Coastal cliffs and steep slopes can be unstable. The report sets safe setbacks, footing design, excavation methods and stormwater disposal so the new work doesn't make things worse.
Sources and references
Costs are from the Rawlinsons handbook with the local cost index applied; rules and timeframes are checked against the sources below.
- Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW)
- State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008
- Home Building Act 1989 (NSW)
- National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW)
- Search heritage databases, NSW Environment and Heritage
- NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer (zoning, FSR and hazard maps)
- Coastal Management Act 2016 (NSW)
- State Environmental Planning Policy (Resilience and Hazards) 2021
- Waverley Council
- Woollahra Municipal Council
- Randwick City Council
Design for the coast before the coast pushes back.
Coastal homes in Waverley, Woollahra and Randwick, planned around the rules and the weather.