Paving near you

Australian planning law does not answer a single yes-or-no question about approval. The NSW Planning Portal describes exempt development as the pathway for many minor renovations and low impact building works that need no planning or construction approval, on condition that the proposed works meet all of the development standards identified in the State Policy, and that the works are structurally adequate and installed in accordance with manufacturer's specifications that comply with the Building Code of Australia. Miss one standard and the exemption falls away entirely, so this is a checklist rather than a judgement call.

For driveways, pathways and paving the state's criteria are striking for what they leave out: no maximum area, no maximum width, no height cap. Size is simply not how this category is controlled. What governs it instead is a short list of qualifying conditions, every one of which has to be satisfied at once — the land the paving sits on, with heritage items, heritage and draft heritage conservation areas, foreshore areas and environmentally sensitive land all ruled out; a mandatory connection, so that run-off is disposed of by a drainage system joined to the existing stormwater drainage system; and a construction standard, AS/NZS 2890.1:2004 for off-street car parking. A large paved area can therefore be exempt while a small one fails, purely on where it sits and where its water goes.

Where the work is bigger than the exempt criteria allow, complying development is the middle pathway. The Planning Portal describes it as a fast-tracked application process that combines planning and construction approval for straightforward residential, commercial and industrial development, determined by a council or an accredited certifier without a full development application where the proposal meets specific development standards, with approvals able to be issued in as little as 20 days. It generally covers larger building works than exempt development, which is why sign-off by a certifying authority is required. Beyond that sits the ordinary development application. Confirm the version of these pathways that applies in your own state and council before you settle a layout.

Everything that matters in a paving job is buried within a day or two of it starting, so the questions worth asking are asked before the surface arrives. The first is about the ground. The ABCB Housing Provisions treat earthworks as a designed operation rather than a bulldozer decision: fill placed as an un-retained embankment must be placed within the allotment, at a gradient complying with the standard's table, placed and mechanically compacted in layers not more than 150 millimetres, and not more than 2 metres in height from the natural ground level at any point. An un-retained site cut must likewise stay within the allotment, sit outside the zone of influence of any existing structure, and go no deeper than 2 metres from natural ground level.

The table behind those rules is the part that explains why two neighbouring jobs need different bases. It sets the slope an embankment will hold by soil type, and the classes are not interchangeable: stable rock stands far steeper than sand, firm clay steeper than soft clay, and soft clay is listed as not suitable for compacted fill embankments at all. Paving laid over ground that was pushed into place years ago and never compacted in layers is the single most common reason a new surface settles unevenly within a couple of seasons.

The second question is where the water goes. Under the National Construction Code's performance requirements for housing, surface water resulting from a storm having an annual exceedance probability of 5 per cent, and which is collected or concentrated by a building or sitework, must be disposed of in a way that avoids the likelihood of damage or nuisance to any other property; and surface water resulting from a storm having an annual exceedance probability of 1 per cent must not enter the building. New paving is sitework that collects and concentrates water by definition. Ask where the falls run, what the paving discharges into, and how that connects to the existing stormwater system, because the exempt development criteria require exactly that connection.

The seasons run the other way here, so winter falls in June, July and August and summer in December, January and February. That reverses the usual scheduling advice imported from the northern hemisphere. Nothing is waiting for a thaw, and nothing is being built to get below a frost line. What you are scheduling around instead is soil moisture, heat and storms.

Compaction is the reason moisture matters. A base can be too wet to compact properly just as easily as it can be too dry, and in the southern states the wettest, softest ground arrives in the middle of the calendar year. Excavating and compacting a saturated yard in July means deeper wheel ruts, mud tracked through the house and a crew working shorter days. Autumn and spring usually give the best combination of workable ground and a settled stretch of weather afterwards.

In the tropical north the year divides into a wet season and a dry season rather than four seasons, and substantial paving is realistically booked in the dry, when machinery can reach the site and a half-finished base will not be washed out overnight. Wherever you are, ask what happens if heavy rain arrives within hours of the surface going down, and get the answer before the trucks are booked rather than on the day.

Licensing is by state, and for paving it splits along an unexpected line. In New South Wales the structural landscaping category covers the construction of external landscape features and non-habitable structures, and its examples expressly include fencing, driveways, paths and other paving of any material, while the general concreting category covers concrete laying or placement, formwork, reinforcement fixing, concrete stencilling, stamped pattern concreting, exposed aggregate work or pebblecreting, concrete repairing and concrete resurfacing, together with the excavation necessary before the concrete goes in. General concreting expressly excludes major site preparation to shore excavations, or work where the structural stability of a neighbouring site or structure might be compromised. Both require a contractor licence above the value threshold set under the Home Building Act 1989.

Queensland draws the line by traffic. The QBCC concreting class covers concreting including installing formwork, reinforcement and concrete, while the structural landscaping trade class covers preparing the site and laying paving or concrete not intended to carry vehicular traffic for landscaping. A garden path and a driveway can therefore sit in different licence classes on the same property, and a QBCC licence is required for building work above the commission's value threshold. Look the number up on the regulator's own register and check the class actually covers the surface you are having built.

Then put it in writing. New South Wales requires a written contract for residential building work above a set value, caps the deposit you can be asked to pay at 10 per cent, and requires that you be given a copy of the Consumer Building Guide before entering into the contract; larger contracts must also set out a cooling-off period of five clear business days. On top of that sit the Australian Consumer Law guarantees the ACCC enforces: services must be carried out with an acceptable level of care and skill, services and any resulting products must be fit for any stated purpose, and services must be supplied within a reasonable time where there is no agreed time frame. Writing down that the paving must carry a vehicle, or must drain to a particular point, makes that purpose stated rather than assumed.

LokalMatch is where the comparison starts. You describe the paving job once, with the area, the surface you have in mind, the slope of the site, what the surface has to carry and whether it reaches the kerb, and matched local paving and concreting contractors get in touch with you directly. Those businesses pay for the requests they receive, which is how the service is funded, and it costs a homeowner nothing to describe a job. LokalMatch does not lay paving, does not quote or set prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any business, so the licence check, the approval and the reference visits stay with you.