Planning permits in City of Darebin.

Darebin was formed from the former Cities of Northcote and Preston, and the heritage in both runs deep. Preston in particular carries named heritage precincts that catch people out — the Newlands Estate, the Preston Tramway Area, the Preston State School precinct among them.

It is an inner-urban, largely built-out municipality under steady redevelopment pressure, with an activity centre framework and a housing strategy that were both written to manage exactly that.

The overlays that matter in this municipality

Overlays are what quietly decide cost and programme. These are the ones that genuinely recur here — and what each one actually means for your drawings.

• Heritage Overlay — Extensive and precinct-based. Named precincts include HO95 (Newlands Estate, Preston), HO103 and HO104 in Preston, HO168 (Preston Tramway Area) and HO169 (Preston State School). Council publishes a dedicated heritage checklist.
• Land Subject to Inundation Overlay — Applies around the Darebin Creek floodplain. Council publishes a specific flood-prone areas checklist.

You can check which of these sit over your own title in about two minutes, free, before engaging anyone: search your address on the Victorian Government's planning property report. Send us the result and we can usually tell you whether a permit is likely from one conversation.

Local controls and quirks worth knowing

• The Darebin Neighbourhood Character Study (2007) established eight character precincts, each with its own Preferred Character Statement and guidelines. As everywhere on this list, the precinct is the unit of assessment — not the suburb.
• The Northcote Activity Centre Structure Plan (2007) designates Northcote a Major Activity Centre, with heights ranging from three to ten-plus storeys depending on where you are within it.
• The Darebin Housing Strategy was adopted in August 2025 — the current strategic framework, in two parts covering growth and need, and character and design.
• Preston Market and its surrounds remain an active development-pressure area, with council openly advocating on its future.

Timing, fees and process

• VicSmart: council states it aims to decide within 10 business days of receiving all required information.
• Council publishes separate checklists for residential development, commercial and industrial, home occupation, heritage and flood-prone areas — use the right one.
• The Metropolitan Planning Levy applies to works of $1,344,000 or more. That is a state levy, not a council fee.

Figures above are council-published at the time of writing and change — treat them as orientation, not gospel, and confirm current fees and requirements with council. We keep across them, but the council's own page is always the authority.

How we prepare a submission here

The way to move quickly through planning is not to make the drawings prettier — it is to make them answerable. Most delays are not design disputes; they are requests for further information, which stop the statutory clock until you respond.

So we start with the planning property report, establish the zone and overlays before design, get a feature and level survey underneath it, test the built form against the local character controls that apply to your precinct, and then assemble a submission that responds to each relevant ResCode standard — Clause 54 for a single dwelling, Clause 55 for two or more — rather than asserting compliance and hoping.

Read more on what a town planning set contains, multi-dwelling work under Clause 55, or the building permit stage that follows.

Suburbs we cover in City of Darebin

Preston, Reservoir, Northcote, Thornbury and Kingsbury, plus parts of Alphington, Fairfield, Bundoora and Macleod.

Suburbs we have built in, with their own local detail: Preston · Northcote.

Working somewhere else? See all our service areas, or send us your address and we will tell you which council and controls apply.