Service area
Building design and planning approvals in Sutherland Shire
Our home ground. We're based in Gymea and most of what we do sits inside this LGA.
The instruments in force
The DCP has been amended repeatedly through 2026 — vehicular access, traffic, parking and bicycles in April 2026, then stormwater and flooding in May 2026 following a report to the April council meeting. Further updates are in preparation. If you are working from a downloaded copy more than a few months old, parts of it are wrong.
Verified 7 September 2026. LEPs are amended constantly and DCP chapters change independently of each other — we confirm the in-force version against your address rather than working from this page.
What makes the Shire its own thing
Topography, water and bushland, in roughly that order.
A large share of Shire blocks slope, and a slope changes everything downstream — the setback formulas tighten as a building gets taller, excavation and retaining show up in the construction budget as a line that can run past $80,000, and stormwater has to get somewhere. The stormwater and flooding chapters of the DCP were updated in May 2026, which matters on the low-lying parts of the LGA.
Then the foreshore. Frontage to Port Hacking, Gunnamatta Bay, the Georges River and the Woronora carries its own controls, and a foreshore building line is not something a good design argument moves.
And the bushfire interface. The Royal National Park and the bushland corridors put a lot of the southern and western Shire on bushfire prone land. That doesn't close complying development on its own, but it adds standards and a bushfire assessment, and on a constrained block it can be the thing that pushes a project to a DA.
What we do here most
- Alterations and additions — the Shire's housing stock is heavily 1960s and 1970s brick, and a great deal of it is being extended rather than replaced. See alterations and additions.
- Dual occupancy — a lot of R2 land with the lot sizes to carry it, and subdivision potential that is often the point. See dual occupancy.
- Secondary dwellings — deep blocks, and the rear setback is usually the binding constraint rather than floor area. See granny flats.
- LMR sites around Miranda, Kirrawee, Sutherland, Caringbah, Jannali and Engadine, where the catchments reach further than most owners realise. See the LMR reforms.
- Knockdown rebuilds on the water and the ridgelines, where the envelope is set by slope and view-sharing rather than by floor area alone.
Working with the council
Sutherland Shire is a well-resourced council with a comparatively predictable assessment culture, which is genuinely helpful — the answer you get at pre-DA tends to be the answer you get at determination. Applications that are complete and that engage with the DCP objectives move; applications that assert compliance and hope tend to collect a request for further information.
On a scheme with a real variation, a pre-DA is worth the fee here. See feasibility and site reviews.
Suburbs we work in
Gymea · Gymea Bay · Miranda · Caringbah · Caringbah South · Cronulla · Woolooware · Burraneer · Kirrawee · Sutherland · Jannali · Como · Oyster Bay · Bonnet Bay · Engadine · Loftus · Yowie Bay · Grays Point · Sylvania · Sylvania Waters · Taren Point · Kareela · Bundeena · Menai · Illawong · Alfords Point · Barden Ridge · Heathcote · Waterfall
Not an exhaustive list of the LGA. If your suburb isn't here, we almost certainly still work there — send the address.
Have a site in Sutherland Shire?
Send us the address. We'll run the controls that apply to it and tell you what it can carry.