Exempt development vs complying developmnent bushfire zone

unfortunately you are correct. You will need a DA in a BAL 40 or FZ zone.

I would just build it if it were my home and take the risk

Kiwimoisi

I can't answer question one as I am not an insurance expert. I can only give you my personal opinion as to what I would do if it was my property. I don't think anyone will care or notice if you build a pergola out of steel. If it were timber yes I can see this being an issue as it add's to the effect a fire will have on your home and timber is a prohibited product under the code.

However, speaking from personal experience of my father's property being lost to a bushfire a few years ago ( NSW South Coast fires), his home was a steel framed and steel clad building, absolutely nothing was left. In those high temperatures everything melted.

I also had my high school burn down in 1987 ( Narooma High - check out the photos on google) and all of the steel frames melted.

Point being, if you build a pergola and a bushfire comes through, it will all melt and in my opinion no one will be any the wiser.

For question two, you need to understand how the planning system works and the relationship between Development Control Plans ( DCP's), Local Environmental plans ( LEP's) and State Environmental Plans (SEPP's).

In order of hierarchy:

1. DCP's are a set of planning rules developed by your local council, which dictate things like building setbacks, landscaping, building heights, site coverage, building materials etc. You can apply for variations in certain circumstances if you have good planning grounds like a unique site.

2. LEP's are the primary planning document for your local council area. Think about them as the legislation that sits behind the DCP, which are very specific sets of rules to your local area that have been developed by your council over a long period of time. Essentially these are the almost unchangeable set of rules that you need to adhere to ( in the most absolute rarest of cases there is a mechanism to apply for a variation but you need an incredibly strong planning and legal argument to do so)

3. SEPP's are planning rules developed by the NSW government which are valid across the entire state and in most cases over ride the LEP's & DCPs.

Because they are intended to cover the entire state they have a one size fits all approach but there are some carve outs for specific local conditions.

Housing and building is covered by the 2008 SEPP Exempt and Complying Development Codes.

This covers many things from the Housing Code, landscaping, earthworks, demolition, tents, temporary structures, rural housing ( to name a few) and exempt and complying development.

As I mentioned before, SEPP's are a one size all planning policy, but they do need to take into account some local conditions.

From my understanding there are a number of localised factors which prohibit you from apply the SEPP to your land if one of these apply:

1. Bushfire prone particularly BAL 40 & FZ. I can understand why this is an exclusion as there is a fair bit of assessing that goes into the approval from the rural fire service, arborists, special bushfire compliant landscape design, removal from trees for an asset protection zone etc. These are all very site specific requirements which would be hard to cover in a one size fits all policy.
2. Flooding - Unless you can get an engineer to certify that you are not in a flood storage area and that your building won't impact homes downstream
3. An environmental E4 zone

If those items apply to your land than you are prohibited from using the SEPP.

In order to confirm what you can do on your land and if the SEPP applies, you need to order an updated 10.7 certificate from your local council and that will tell you what you can and can't do.

I hope this helps

Cheers

Simeon