Land covered by a planning scheme sits in a zone, and the zone decides what may be built on it. The instruments that set those zones are written in three different ways. South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory each have one instrument for the whole jurisdiction. Tasmania has one state scheme with a local schedule for 28 of its 29 councils; Kingborough still operates under an interim scheme. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia give each council its own scheme, built on a common state framework. The instruments are also amended often: every principal plan and scheme held for New South Wales and Victoria has a current version that took effect in 2026.
Node reading for Planning Regulations & Zoning Policy (21320): NIL RETURN. This article rests on the source data alone.
What a zoning instrument does
A zoning instrument divides land into zones, residential, commercial, industrial, rural and so on, and states for each zone what uses are allowed, which need approval and which are prohibited. Most also carry overlays, which apply further rules to land with a particular feature such as heritage value, flood risk or bushfire exposure, and development standards or codes that a proposal is assessed against. The zone map says where each rule applies; the instrument’s text says what the rule is.
Every state and territory has instruments of this kind, but they differ in who makes them and how many there are. This article describes those instruments as they stand, from the 192 held in APN’s Regulatory Instrument Library. It describes their structure and scope, not the content of any zone. The wider statute book they sit within is mapped in What Governs Housing: The Statute Book, Mapped.
Three ways of writing zones
| Jurisdiction | Where the zones are written | How local difference is handled | Held in APN’s library |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Australia | Planning and Design Code, one instrument for the whole state | Zones, subzones and overlays mapped within the one Code | The Code; covers all 70 council areas |
| Australian Capital Territory | Territory Plan 2023 | District and zone policies within the one Plan | The Plan; covers the Territory |
| Northern Territory | Northern Territory Planning Scheme 2020 | Area plans for particular towns and communities within the Scheme | The Scheme, Jabiru Town Plan 2019 and 42 area plans |
| Tasmania | Tasmanian Planning Scheme: State Planning Provisions | A Local Provisions Schedule for each council | The Provisions and all 29 council instruments |
| Victoria | Victoria Planning Provisions, applied by a planning scheme for each council | Each council’s scheme selects and applies the state provisions | 33 of 79 council schemes |
| New South Wales | A local environmental plan for each council | Zones of every plan published in one statewide map, grouped into common categories | 37 principal plans across 33 of 128 council areas, and 21 other plans |
| Queensland | A planning scheme for each council | The Planning Regulation 2017 prescribes the zones a scheme may use | 14 of 78 council schemes |
| Western Australia | A local planning scheme for each council, with region schemes above them | Deemed provisions in the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015 apply to every scheme | 11 of 139 council schemes |
As at 23 September 2026. Council areas are local government areas in the ABS geography, excluding unincorporated areas. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library.
Where each council has its own scheme, the library holds the schemes of the largest councils rather than every one, and the share it holds differs by state. That coverage bounds every count that follows.
Council areas whose zoning instrument is held, council-scheme states
Share of local government areas, unincorporated areas excluded. Coverage of APN’s library, not a measure of the states. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library, 23 September 2026.
One instrument for the jurisdiction. South Australia’s Planning and Design Code is a single statewide collection of zones, subzones and overlays, prepared and maintained by the State Planning Commission and applied to all of the state’s council areas. The Australian Capital Territory’s Territory Plan 2023 sets district and zone policies for the whole Territory. The Northern Territory Planning Scheme 2020 covers the Territory’s zoned land, with area plans that guide the use and development of particular towns and communities, 42 of them in the library.
A state scheme with local schedules. Tasmania has one Tasmanian Planning Scheme. Its State Planning Provisions apply everywhere, and each council has a Local Provisions Schedule that applies them to its own area, adding particular purpose zones and specific area plans where needed. One council, Kingborough, still operates under an interim scheme. The library holds the Provisions and the instrument for every council.
A scheme for each council, on a state framework. In the four most populous states each council has its own instrument, and the state sets the framework it is built on. Every Victorian scheme applies the Victoria Planning Provisions, the state’s provisions for zones and overlays. New South Wales publishes the zones of every council’s plan in one statewide zoning map, grouped into common zone categories. In Queensland the Planning Regulation 2017 prescribes the zones a council scheme may use, and in Western Australia deemed provisions in state regulations apply to every local planning scheme, which sits beneath a region scheme in the major urban regions. The state framework makes the zones recognisably alike from council to council; the council scheme decides where each one applies.
New South Wales: layers of plans
In New South Wales a council area can have more than one plan in force at once. The library holds 58 local environmental plans for 33 council areas. 37 are principal plans, each setting zones and development standards for a council area; MidCoast and Northern Beaches each still run three, one for each of the former council areas they were formed from. The remaining 21 are older or narrower plans still in force: 11 earlier plans that apply to land left outside the current principal plan, 6 precinct or site plans, such as Harold Park and the Green Square Town Centre in Sydney, and 4 single-purpose plans, such as one that reclassifies public land in Campbelltown.
Local environmental plans held for New South Wales, by kind
Number of plans in force for 33 council areas, as classified from each plan’s stated scope. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library, 23 September 2026.
The principal plans themselves were made over sixteen years. The oldest held is Liverpool’s, made in 2008; the most recent are Canterbury-Bankstown’s and Parramatta’s, made in 2023. Six each were made in 2013 and 2014, more than in any other year, and 8 were made in 2019 or later: The Hills (2019), Bayside, Cumberland and Georges River (2021), Central Coast and Inner West (2022), and Canterbury-Bankstown and Parramatta (2023).
Principal local environmental plans held for New South Wales, by the year each was made
Number of plans, by the year in each plan’s title. 37 principal plans for 33 council areas. A plan made in an earlier year has since been amended many times; the year is when the plan was first made. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library, 23 September 2026.
Penrith shows the layering most clearly. Alongside its 2010 principal plan, five other plans are in force: earlier plans for urban land and for rural land, a heritage conservation plan, a plan for exempt and complying development, and a plan requiring consent for dwelling houses. The zone that applies to a given lot may therefore come from an older instrument than the council’s current plan.
How often the instruments change
Zoning instruments are amended continually, and the library records the date each current version took effect. Of the 37 principal New South Wales plans, all have a current version dated 2026, 19 of them on the same day, 1 July 2026. All 33 Victorian schemes held have a current version dated 2026. In Tasmania 29 of the 30 instruments held have a current version dated 2026, and in Queensland 6 of the 13 schemes with a dated version do.
Zoning instruments whose current version took effect in 2026
Share of instruments with a dated current version. Jurisdictions are listed in a fixed order, not ranked. Western Australia is omitted because only two of its eleven schemes held carry a version date. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library, versions current at 23 September 2026.
Zoning instruments by the month their current version took effect, 2026
Number of instruments. Each is counted once, in the month of its current version; an instrument amended several times in 2026 appears only at its latest, so counts accumulate in recent months by construction. 121 of the 192 instruments held have a current version dated 2026. Source: APN Regulatory Instrument Library, versions current at 23 September 2026.
The July total stands out because 32 New South Wales plans, principal and older alike, have a current version dated 1 July 2026. Some changes are made once and carried into many instruments. Eleven of the 33 Victorian schemes share the same current amendment, VC312, which took effect in each of them on 16 June 2026; three more share GC285, from 22 July, and two share GC240, from 10 September. The other 17 each have a current amendment not shared with another scheme held. The single-instrument systems change in one place: South Australia’s Planning and Design Code is at Version 2026.17, in effect from 10 September 2026; Tasmania’s State Planning Provisions are at version 17, from 7 September 2026; the Australian Capital Territory’s Territory Plan is at its 46th republication, from 7 August 2026; and the Northern Territory Planning Scheme’s current consolidation runs to amending instrument 182, to 14 September 2026.
The library records the date of each version, not the amendment that produced it, so a new version may reflect a change of any size, from a single site rezoning to a statewide reform. Version numbers are counted differently from one council to the next, and are not compared here.
What this does not show
The instruments are described from their titles, their stated scope and their version records. No zone rule is summarised here, and the article says nothing about how permissive or restrictive any instrument is. A count of instruments measures how zoning is organised, not how much it regulates: South Australia’s one Code may do the work of many council schemes elsewhere. For New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia the library holds the largest councils’ schemes, not every scheme, so the counts above describe the councils held, as the table sets out. What the states report about the housing capacity of zoned land is covered in How Much Land Is Zoned for Housing? What the States Report.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
