Planning

Our Duty Planner can provide you with some initial guidance on whether your proposal requires a planning permit, and what planning scheme requirements need to be met or may be relevant to your property.

By talking to us early in the planning process, we can help with whether the City of Hobart is likely to support your proposal and can discuss changes to your project design that may be necessary to make the proposal more acceptable.

You can call our Duty Planner on 03 6238 2711. If you would prefer to come into our office at Hobart Council Centre, 16 Elizabeth Street, Hobart then please call our Duty Planner to make an appointment.

PlanBuild Enquiry Service portal

If you would like general advice about your proposal, including information about possible permit requirements, you can submit a request using the PlanBuild Enquiry Service portal.

You can also request formal confirmation that your proposal does not require planning permission by lodging a Request for No Planning Permit Required Confirmation through the PlanBuild Application Services portal.

If you will require a planning permit and you would like further advice about your proposal, this may attract a fee. This will be explained to you once your application has been reviewed and you will not incur the fee without electing to do so.

PlanBuild Enquiry Service portal

Talk to your neighbours

We highly recommend that you discuss your proposal with your neighbours and anyone else who may be impacted, before you lodge your application. This often saves a lot of time later down the track if small changes can be made to address their concerns early on.

Consider getting professional advice

This will help you develop your ideas and designs so they meet the City's expectations and will help you to determine the type and detail of the information you will need to prepare and submit with an application.

Please note, the City's Chief Executive Officer also carries out the statutory role of "General Manager" for the purposes of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993.

If your application for a planning permit includes land owned or administered by the City of Hobart, you require the written permission of the General Manager for the application to be validly lodged with the planning authority in accordance with section 52 of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993.

Please lodge your application through PlanBuild.

PlanBuild

For further details on General Manager consent including what information is required to be provided, please see the City's General Manager consent guidelines(PDF, 236KB).

If you aren't sure whether General Manager consent is required then please see our General Manager consent checklist(DOCX, 190KB) which will guide you on the common situations where consent is required. We encourage you to complete this checklist and provide it as part of your General Manager consent application, to assist us to understand your application.

Planning applications can only be lodged online. You answer questions about yourself and the project, upload documents in PDF format and pay the application fees.

PlanBuild

Discover all the resources and support you need for PlanBuild Tasmania on the self-help and training guides page.

By talking to us early in the planning process, we can help with project design and permits. The best way to find out what permits you need is to submit an enquiry online or make an appointment to see a Duty Planner at the Hobart Council Centre, 16 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, by phoning 03 6238 2711.

For building enquiries, please contact a private building surveyor. For enquiries about building permits already lodged, please contact City of Hobart's Permit Coordinator on 03 6238 2711.

Find more information and assistance on our preparing an application page.

Preliminary assessment

City of Hobart Officers undertake an initial assessment of the application to see if enough information has been supplied to make a well-informed decision.

Referrals

We may also refer your application to other areas within the City, including Development Engineering, Environmental Planning, Heritage, Environmental Health, Stormwater, Road and Mobility.

Once these areas have completed their initial assessment we will determine whether further information is required to advise and/or assess your application.

Further information may be required

If we need more information, the Planning Officer will send the request for further information as soon as possible. The Planning Officers have up to 21 days to request further information for a discretionary application and 14 days for a permitted application.

The application is then put on hold until this information is received.

Advertising

Not all applications are required to be advertised, but if required (these are called discretionary applications), the application will be advertised for 14 days.

These discretionary applications are made public:

• within the Public Notice section of The Mercury on weekdays
• on the City of Hobart website
• on all frontages of the property
• in writing to all adjoining neighbours.

The plans and documentation relating to an advertised application can be viewed on PlanBuild and are also made available to you at the Hobart Council Centre, 16 Elizabeth Street, Hobart.

Representations

A written submission in support or in opposition to an advertised (discretionary) planning application is called a representation.

A representation must be in writing and should state the reasons why they support or object to the application.

More information is available on the representations page.

All representations received are considered by the Planning Officer in their assessment.

Assessment

A comprehensive assessment of the development application is undertaken by the Planning Officer.

In assessing the application, they will take into account:

• the relevant sections of the planning scheme
• representations received during the advertised period
• comments or suggested conditions from areas (both internally and externally) that were referred the application.

The Planning Officer will then prepare a report with a recommendation for approval with conditions or refusal.

Decision

The report with the recommendation for approval with conditions or refusal is forwarded for authorisation, depending on delegation, to either the:

• Director City Life, Manager Development Appraisal and Senior Statutory Planner; or
• the Planning Committee.

For more information on delegations, see the summary of delegations(PDF, 789KB).

A permit containing conditions of approval or reasons for refusal is forwarded to the applicant (and any representors) within seven days of a decision being made.