Every planning tool with a map of Australia claims coverage. The word does a lot of hiding. “We cover NSW” can mean a human read every control document in the state, or it can mean a server passes through whatever a government API returns. Both get coloured in on the coverage map.
We think the difference is the whole product. So we label it, on every value we return. Feasibly’s data sits in three tiers, and we’ll tell you which one you’re looking at.
Tier 1: Verified-schedule depth
In Victoria, the numbers that govern what you can build — minimum lot size, height, garden area, setbacks — live in council-specific zone schedules, not in any API. We’ve interpreted 790+ schedules across all 79 Victorian councils by hand from the source planning schemes, human-verified them against the ordinance, and we monitor every scheme daily for amendments. Values at this tier carry a clause citation and a verified stamp.
Tier 2: Machine-extracted control depth
In NSW, the LEP APIs give you the zone but omit the dwelling controls that decide a site’s real capacity — setbacks, site coverage, landscaped area, private open space. Those live in council DCPs. We’ve machine-extracted them for 116 NSW councils (plus 8 South East Queensland planning schemes), with independent verification progressing council by council — 39 NSW councils so far.
This tier is screening-grade: good enough to flag the question, cited so you can check the answer. We mark it machine_extract in the data, because it is not the same thing as a human-verified schedule, and a tool that won’t tell you the difference is asking you to carry its risk.
Tier 3: Authoritative-API depth
In SA, Queensland, WA, the ACT and Tasmania, zone and overlay data comes straight from the government’s own spatial services — authoritative, current, and attributed. What those APIs don’t carry is the deeper control layer, so at this tier we return what the state publishes and say so, rather than dressing pass-through data up as analysis.
Why label it at all
A number you can’t audit is a liability, not an answer.
Every Feasibly value carries its source and a confidence tag, so a conveyancer, surveyor, or lender reading the output knows exactly how much weight it bears. And whatever the tier: screening data informs the question you take to council — it never replaces the professional who answers it.
The tier map for every state is public on the coverage page, and the verification process is documented in our methodology. If you’re evaluating any planning-data tool, including ours — ask it one question: which tier is this number, and how would I check?