Building design & drafting in Mount Waverley.

What's built here

Same story as its neighbour: the railway arrived in 1930, the suburb stayed rural into the 1950s, then filled rapidly through the 1950s to 70s on large blocks. The local shopping centre — L-shaped, with its landscaped car park — was built in 1959 beside the station.

The planning context

Here is the fact that matters. The Mount Waverley Activity Centre Structure Plan was adopted in March 2021 and implemented through Amendment C167, gazetted in June 2024 — introducing the first ever design and height controls for Mount Waverley Village. Before that, there were none on commercial land in the centre. Any approval or precedent from before mid-2024 predates the entire current regime.

Controls that actually apply in Mount Waverley

• Design and Development Overlay Schedule 17 — The new baseline, gazetted June 2024, over Commercial 1 Zone land in the activity centre. Up to 8 storeys on part of the large car park site fronting Virginia Street and Winbourne Avenue; 3 storeys for the remainder; 4 to 5 storeys on land fronting Stephensons Road, subject to ceiling heights.
• General Residential Zone — Outside the DDO17 area, residential land remains capped at the standard 3 storeys.
• Vegetation Protection Overlay — Applies to parts of the suburb, extended over Miller Crescent through Amendment C163 in 2022.
• The precedent trap — Do not reason from pre-2024 approvals here. DDO17 is a first-ever control, not an update to an earlier one. What a neighbour got approved in 2022 tells you nothing about what you can get now.

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 Mount Waverley

Dual occupancy, townhouses and knockdown rebuilds on 1950s–70s General Residential lots at three storeys; VPO-constrained tree removal on established blocks; mid-rise mixed use in the village core, permittable for the first time.

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 Mount Waverley 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.