Reference Data · New South Wales
Sutherland Shire DCP: the dwelling controls, as published.
5 controls for low-density residential — dwelling houses, taken from Sutherland Shire Development Control Plan 2015, Chapter 2 Dwelling Houses — Part c: Dwelling Houses in the R2 Low Density Residential Zone (May 2026 version). As at 2026-08-05.
NSW has no statewide dwelling setback or site-coverage standard. The LEP sets zone, height and FSR; the numbers that shape a build sit in each council's DCP. Below are the 5 controls Sutherland Shire publishes numerically. Anything its DCP assesses on merit rather than a fixed number is simply absent from this table — it is not a zero, and it is not a permission.
Sutherland Shire — published dwelling controls
| Control | Published value | Qualifier |
|---|---|---|
| Front setback | 7.5 m | 7.5m to the primary (narrowest) street frontage; except where adjoining dwellings are setback greater or less than 7.5m, in which case the established street setback applies (average setback of the nearest dwelling houses having the same primary road boundary and located within 40m of the lot; where the difference between those setbacks is <=2.0m the greater or lesser may be applied). Front setback for an internal lot is 4.0m. |
| Secondary street setback | 3 m | — |
| Side setback | 0.9 m | — |
| Rear setback | 6 m | — |
| Private open space | 36 m² | — |
Source: Sutherland Shire Development Control Plan 2015, Chapter 2 Dwelling Houses — Part c: Dwelling Houses in the R2 Low Density Residential Zone (May 2026 version). Clauses: Part c, cl. 2.2 Building Setbacks (Table 1: Setbacks); cl. 4.2 Landscaping (control 1); cl. 5.2 Building Layout, Private Open Space and Solar Access (control 3); cl. 1.2 Streetscape and Building Form (height). Open the source DCP.
Qualifications that change how these read
- Source is the current Sutherland DCP 2015, Chapter 2 Dwelling Houses (May 2026 revision) linked from the council's DCP page. The chapter is split by zone; Part c is the R2 Low Density Residential zone (standard low-density dwelling house). Other parts cover C3, C4, R3, R4, E1 and SP3 zones.
- SITE COVERAGE: null — no site coverage percentage or area control is stated anywhere in the chapter (word 'coverage' absent). Bulk is instead controlled via 2-storey height limit and a 60%-of-site-depth built-form rule (cl.1.2).
- LANDSCAPED AREA: no site-wide landscaped-area or deep-soil percentage. The only landscaping % (cl.4.2(1)) requires max 50% hard surface within the front setback, with the remaining 50% as deep soil landscaping — this applies to the front setback only, not the whole site, so landscaped_flat_pct/tiers/deep_soil are null. Also cl.4.2(3): min 4 trees per lot (2 within 3m of front boundary, 2 within 2m of rear boundary).
- SETBACK TABLE 1 additional values not captured in scalar fields: front internal-lot 4.0m; side second-storey 1.5m; side internal-lot 1.5m; side bush-fire-prone-land 1.5m; rear internal-lot 4.0m. side_setback_m=0.9 is the ground-floor side minimum.
- min_boundary_setback_m left null — the DCP gives per-boundary setbacks (Table 1) rather than a single generic minimum boundary setback; the smallest value is the 0.9m ground-floor side.
- PRIVATE OPEN SPACE: 36m2 min, min dimension 5m, of which 9m2 paved (cl.5.2(3)); 10m2 of POS must get 3h solar access 9am-3pm at winter solstice. No reduced minimum for small sites.
- Fetch note: the council PDF host is behind a Cloudflare managed challenge that blocked Zyte's byte-download and the Jina reader; the PDF was retrieved by driving Zyte's browser to navigate to the PDF (clearing the challenge, HTTP 200) then same-origin fetching the 1.8MB %PDF-1.7 bytes and running pdftotext -layout.
How this was compiled, and how far to trust it
These values were machine-extracted from the source DCP and have not been independently re-checked. Treat them as screening grade: good enough to compare councils and to know which questions to ask, not a substitute for reading the clause before you rely on it. This is a different and lower tier of confidence than our Victorian zone schedules, which are read and verified from the source planning scheme by a person. We do not present the two as equivalent.
A council's DCP can be amended at any time and this page reflects the document as at 2026-08-05. Where a control is absent above, the DCP either sets no number or assesses that parameter on merit.
This information is provided for research and preliminary screening only. It does not constitute professional planning, legal or architectural advice. Always verify with Sutherland Shire before making decisions.
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