Section 29A: The Council Consent That Delays Most Demolitions

Almost every delayed demolition in Victoria has the same cause: someone assumed the building permit for the new house covered the demolition of the old one. It does not, and the gap between those two assumptions is usually a couple of months.

Two separate approvals

**A demolition permit** is issued by a registered building surveyor — private or municipal — under the Building Act 1993. It is the approval to carry out the demolition work.

**A report and consent under Section 29A** is issued by the council. It is the council's view on whether the building should come down at all, and for a dwelling, the surveyor cannot issue the demolition permit until the council's consent is in hand.

Different bodies, different considerations, sequential rather than parallel. That sequence is why the whole thing takes as long as it does.

When 29A applies

It applies to the demolition of a building, or **part** of a building, in the circumstances set out in the Act. The part is what surprises people. Owners routinely assume a small job is exempt because the volume is small — but removing a street-facing element like a verandah or a chimney can require consent on its own.

There are exemptions, and they are specific rather than general. The reliable approach is to have the question answered for your actual address rather than reasoning from what a neighbour told you about their job.

What the council is looking at

Broadly, whether demolition is appropriate having regard to the character of the area and the significance of the building. In practice, three things dominate the outcome:

**Overlays.** Heritage overlay, neighbourhood character overlay, environmental or significant landscape overlay. If one applies, the demolition may need a planning permit as well, and the timeline changes from weeks to months.

**The age and significance of the building.** An unremarkable 1970s brick veneer attracts little scrutiny. A Victorian cottage in an established street attracts a great deal.

**The streetscape.** Councils care about what the street looks like afterwards. Applications supported by good photographs and a clear site plan get through faster than applications that force an officer to go and look for themselves.

How long it takes

A straightforward application on an unremarkable building, in a council without a backlog, commonly runs a few weeks. Inside a heritage overlay, with a planning permit and possibly a heritage consultant's report in the mix, months is realistic.

The variation between the thirty-one metro councils is real. Same legislation, different queues, different forms, different portals and different appetite for further information requests.

The single most useful thing you can do

Check your overlay status before you sign a build contract.

It is free. It takes minutes. And it is the difference between planning a program around a two-month approval or discovering halfway through that you need a planning permit, a heritage report and a decision that will not arrive before spring.

Practical sequence

1. Check overlays on the planning property report for the address 2. Lodge the Section 29A application with the council 3. In parallel, lodge service abolishment applications — they are just as slow and nothing depends on them being second 4. Consent issued 5. Building surveyor issues the demolition permit 6. Asset protection permit, protection work notices where required 7. Asbestos removal 8. Demolition

Steps 2 and 3 are the long ones and they can run at the same time. Almost every program that slips does so because one of them was started late.

Preparing, lodging and chasing these applications is part of what we do on a demolition. Files sit in queues, and steady follow-up with the officer handling yours moves things that a message into a generic inbox never will.