Building design & drafting in Kew East.

What's built here

Interwar bungalow subdivisions from the late 1910s through the early 1940s, as Kew's population tripled, then substantial postwar development on former orchard and paddock land near Yarra Bend Park and Stradbroke Park — wartime building restrictions had delayed construction on land already subdivided. Detached houses on leafy streets, with pockets of earlier Victorian and Edwardian stock.

The planning context

Kew East is residential, with local strip shopping and no major redevelopment precinct. It sits in Boroondara Neighbourhood Character Precinct 2 — shared with parts of Balwyn, North Balwyn and Deepdene — whose Precinct Statement sits under Clause 15.01-5L. The suburb is officially Kew East; East Kew is the older colloquial name and still widely used.

Controls that actually apply in Kew East

• Amendment C306 — gazetted March 2021 — The Kew East and Mont Albert Heritage Gap Study applied Heritage Overlay to around ten individual places and three new precincts: the Boulevard Estate and Environs Precinct (HO838), the Harp Village Commercial Precinct (HO839) and the Windella Avenue and Environs Precinct (HO840). If your advice predates 2021, it predates these.
• Neighbourhood Character Overlay — Applies in parts of Kew and Kew East independently of heritage status — and can trigger a demolition permit on a postwar house nobody would think of as heritage.
• Overlapping controls — This is the Kew East trap. A single property can sit under a Heritage Overlay and a Neighbourhood Character Overlay at once, each applying its own separate permit test. Heritage-intensive, character-controlled, and with no activity centre driving it.

Check what sits over your own title in two minutes, free: search your address on the Victorian Government's planning property report. Send it to us and we can usually tell you whether a permit is likely from one conversation.

What we typically do in Kew East

Renovations and extensions to interwar and postwar houses; second-storey additions; knockdown rebuilds on lots outside the overlays; small-scale dual occupancy; heritage-sensitive work inside the three C306 precincts.

Whatever the type, the documentation is the same discipline: architectural drafting drawn to be built, town planning drawings council can assess first time, and working drawings a builder can price without padding.

Planning controls change — amendments are gazetted regularly. Everything above was accurate at the time of writing, but confirm current controls for your specific address before relying on them.

Talk to us about your Kew East project

Send us the address and the planning property report and we will tell you what applies — before you commit to anything. Get in touch, or see everywhere else we work.