1. Pre-application meeting
It is a very good idea to have pre-application meetings with an urban planner from Council before you submit a planning permit application. These meetings are free of charge and help Council's urban planners deal with your application faster than normal.
At a pre-application meeting, you will find out about any problems with your proposal and if your application fits in to the Moreland Planning Scheme. You will also be told about ways to reduce the time it takes for Council to deal with your application and the level of information you need to provide to help Council deal with your application.
The meetings take about one hour depending on how big the proposal is and more than one meeting can sometimes be needed. Contact Council to make an appointment.
Why have a pre-application meeting?
Badly prepared applications delay Council’s processing of your application.
A pre-application meeting helps your planning permit application get processed faster.
A pre-application meeting does not guarantee that a permit will be issued.
At a pre-application meeting, Council’s urban planner will:
- check if the Moreland Planning Scheme allows the application
- talk about possible changes to your application to improve the chance of it being supported. Changing your plans early will save you the time and money involved in having to change your finalised plans later.
- tell you any extra information you need to submit with your planning permit application to avoid delays in Council processing the application, and
- answer any question you may have like:
- processing of your application
- who will be involved
- likely timeframes for deciding the application, and
- what you can do to make it easier and faster.
Prepare for a pre-application meeting
Before the meeting:
- Look at Moreland City Plan – Council's Municipal Strategic Statement and any other planning policies that may affect your application. Make notes to ask questions about these policies.
- Get the zoning information and overlays for your property.
- Get a copy of the Certificate of Title for the land. To get a current copy of title visit the Department of Sustainability and Environment website and do an online title search.
- If you are building units, you will need to get a detailed neighbourhood and site description and a design response to lodge with your application. An architect or a draftsperson can do these. These should be prepared early. You get better advice at with the pre-application meeting with these documents.
- Consider the use of design principles and strategies that help reduce the environmental impact of buildings. See the web page on Environmentally Sustainable Buildings or see the Environmental Sustainability Guides linked below.
- Get preliminary designs and sketches that show:
- how your project fits the site and the surrounding area, and
- how the design considers site constraints, for example, a steep slope or trees and the building heights and layout of surrounding properties including their setbacks from the street and the sensitive private open space or windows.
Without all this information, the urban planner’s advice at a pre-application meeting is limited.
After the pre-application meeting
You should take your own notes at the meeting to follow up on things afterwards including any suggested changes, other people to speak to (for example, State Government agencies such as Melbourne Water or Vic Roads who will be asked to comment on your application once it is lodged) and the additional information you will need before lodging your application.
More than one pre-application meeting is often required to confirm the changes that may have been made, any additional information that has been obtained and to check that your application fee, the application description and other information on the application form are correct before lodging.
Even if Council Officers have advised that they would not recommend that your proposal is supported, it is still worthwhile having another meeting to check you have all the information and the application form is correct as this will still save delays once the application is lodged.
Council also encourages all applicants to discuss their proposal with their neighbours before they lodge. Where possible, addressing the concerns of neighbours early can save you delays later on as well as the costs of making changes to your finalised plans.
Files
- 'The Planning Process' brochure for planning permit applicants (PDF 5Mb)
- 'The Planning Process' brochure for planning permit applicants (DOC 5Mb)
- Urban Planning in Moreland - How you can speed up the application process (DOC 238Kb)
- ESD factsheet for small to medium applications (PDF 262Kb)
- ESD factsheet for large-scale applications (PDF 298Kb)
