For Tasmanian architects and designers

Design to the Acceptable Solution, or decide not to

Every Tasmanian standard has an Acceptable Solution and a Performance Criterion. Which one you design toward is a project decision that belongs at concept stage, not at lodgement.

Where Tasmania catches people out

You resolve the design and check the standards afterwards

By then the choice has been made for you. A scheme that misses an Acceptable Solution has moved to a Performance Criterion, with notification, representations and appeal rights attached.

You work from the State Planning Provisions alone

The Local Provisions Schedule applies the zones and codes to the land and carries the local specifics. The site-particular answer is there, not in the state provisions on their own.

The codes are noted on the site analysis and left there

Bushfire, landslip, coastal and heritage codes carry their own standards and referrals, and can reshape the brief — siting, access, construction, setbacks from a hazard — rather than annotate it.

Getting started

Check the title before the first sketch. Knowing which Acceptable Solutions you can meet outright is what keeps an application permitted rather than argued.

General information about the Tasmania planning system, not advice on a particular site. What applies to a property depends on its zone, the controls affecting it and what is proposed.