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A landscaping job in the Inner West, around Vaucluse, or in Gordon often starts with the fence. Who pays, where it sits, how high it can be, and whether the old masonry footing can take a new wall are different conversations. Mix them up and you get a neighbour dispute, a Council stop-work, or a wall that leans in the first winter. This is a contractor’s reading of the Dividing Fences Act 1991 (NSW), the Codes SEPP, and how wind and concrete behave. It is not legal advice and

Two State housing projects are redrawing the sky next to family houses DC already works on. In Ku-ring-gai, the November 2025 station-precinct SEPP replaced the first Transport Oriented Development controls around Gordon, Killara, Lindfield and Roseville. In the Gordon town centre, a nominated key site can now go to 109 metres — if the site is large enough and the scheme delivers non-residential floor space and either community floor area or affordable housing. The public des

A building job does not run on the builder’s watch. It runs on the consent. Hours of work, tree protection, sediment fences, dilapidation photos and “no work on Sunday” are not courtesy. They are conditions of development consent. Breach them and the certifier, Council or the neighbour can stop the site. The Planning System Reforms Act 2025 is pushing those conditions toward statewide model wording. Hours of work and tree protection are the items the State has said it will ke

Ku-ring-gai sold itself as a garden suburb for a reason. West Pymble, Gordon and St Ives are streets of one house, a deep front setback, and a rear garden that could hold a tall tree. That pattern is why Council spent 2025 writing dual-occupancy controls around canopy and deep soil, and why the State Low and Mid-Rise map now sits over the same streets. DC’s work here is the leftover ground: the strip that used to be one backyard and is now two courtyards, a dividing fence, a

The family home in Sydney is no longer assumed to stay one house on one lot. Since 28 February 2025 the NSW Low and Mid-Rise Housing Policy has made dual occupancies, terraces and, in the right zones, apartment buildings much easier to approve near nominated stations and town centres. Dual occupancies are now permitted with consent in R2 Low Density Residential across the state. That is the policy. The question on DC jobs is more local: what happens to the house that is alrea

A large tree on a Sydney block is rarely just a tree. In the Inner West, around Vaucluse, and on the Upper North Shore at West Pymble, Gordon and St Ives, most substantial trees are prescribed. Pruning or removal usually needs a Council permit, a Development Application, or both. DC runs into this on courtyard jobs because a fence footing, a paved room or a service trench can sit inside a tree’s root zone even when nobody planned to take the tree out. This post sets out the a

A DC briefing note for homeowners, builders and landscape contractors working in the Inner West LGA. This article explains when landscaping work in the Inner West needs Council consent, how owner and neighbour consent actually works, and what a typical application looks like. It is written for real courtyard and garden projects — fences, footings, retaining walls, paving, trees and outdoor structures — not generic “house extensions”. Important: NSW planning rules change. This