Rooming house rules, Victoria
Every figure in the Clause 52.23 pathway with the ordinance it was read from, in one page. This is the specification behind the address check — published so it can be checked, quoted and argued with.
A new rooming house in Victoria needs no planning permit where both limbs of Clause 52.23 of the Victoria Planning Provisions are satisfied: 52.23-2 removes the permit for the use in ten zones, and 52.23-3 removes it for the buildings and works in six of them, provided the total floor area of all buildings on the land stays at or under 300 square metres excluding outbuildings, no more than 12 persons are accommodated in no more than 9 bedrooms, every bedroom is reached only from inside the building, shared entry facilities and common areas including a kitchen and a living area are provided, and in the General and Neighbourhood Residential zones the minimum garden area is kept. This page sets out each of those figures next to the clause or regulation it comes from, adds what the exemption does not touch — a building permit, NCC Class 1b classification, an operator licence, council registration, minimum room sizes and facility ratios all still apply — and states plainly where the same question cannot be answered from open data, which is every Queensland council planning scheme.
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Verified
- 2026-09-19
- Sources read
- Victoria Planning Provisions at the VC313 republication of 18 September 2026, read through planning-schemes.app.planning.vic.gov.au; Building Regulations 2018; Queensland state spatial layers probed live on 19 September 2026.
- Cite as
- Don, J. (2026). Australian rooming house and small second dwelling rules dataset (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. DollarBuild — Optima Real Estate Pty Ltd. https://dollarbuild.com.au/data/rooming-house-rules-au.json
- Machine-readable (JSON)
- /data/rooming-house-rules-au.json
- Machine-readable (Markdown)
- /data/rooming-house-rules-au.md
- Run it against an address
- Address check
Both files are served with CORS open, so any site, script or AI agent can fetch them directly. Reuse is permitted under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.
The envelope Clause 52.23 defines
- Maximum total floor area
- 300 m² — across all buildings on the land, excluding outbuildings
- Maximum bedrooms
- 9
- Maximum persons accommodated
- 12
Clause 52.23-2/-3 counts the total floor area of ALL buildings on the land, measured from the outside of external walls or the centre of party walls, EXCLUDING outbuildings. An attached garage sits inside the external walls and counts; a detached garage, shed or carport is an outbuilding and does not. A retained house on the lot counts. Upper floors count — the measure is floor area, not footprint.
Clause 52.23-2 — the use
- Clause
- 52.23-2
- Amendment
- VC274, 28 February 2025
- Zones
- ACZ · CCZ · C1Z · GRZ · HCTZ · MUZ · NRZ · PRZ · RGZ · TZ
- 01Total floor area of all buildings on the land does not exceed 300 m², excluding outbuildings
- 02No more than 12 persons accommodated
- 03No more than 9 bedrooms provided
- 04The zone-table condition for the zone is met
Clause 52.23-3 — the buildings and works
- Clause
- 52.23-3
- Amendment
- VC257, 25 February 2025
- Zones
- GRZ · HCTZ · MUZ · NRZ · RGZ · TZ
- 01Every bedroom is accessed only from within the building
- 02Shared entry facilities and common areas including a kitchen and living area are provided
- 03The zone minimum garden area is kept in the General or Neighbourhood Residential Zone
Zones
The use exemption reaches ten zones; the works exemption reaches six of them. Outside the works list the use may be exempt while the building still needs a permit — a distinction that decides whether a lot is worth a feasibility.
| Code | Zone | Use (52.23-2) | Works (52.23-3) | Garden area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACZ | Activity Centre Zone | Yes | No | No |
| C1Z | Commercial 1 Zone | Yes | No | No |
| CCZ | Capital City Zone | Yes | No | No |
| GRZ | General Residential Zone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HCTZ | Housing Choice and Transport Zone | Yes | Yes | No |
| MUZ | Mixed Use Zone | Yes | Yes | No |
| NRZ | Neighbourhood Residential Zone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PRZ | Precinct Zone | Yes | No | No |
| RGZ | Residential Growth Zone | Yes | Yes | No |
| TZ | Township Zone | Yes | Yes | No |
PRZ is the Precinct Zone (VC274, 28 February 2025). It is NOT 'PZ' — on the Vicmap plan_zone layer PZ is the PORT ZONE, verified 19 September 2026. A rule pack that wrote PZ here would put port land in the use-exemption list.
The Commercial 1 Zone adds its own zone-table condition: any frontage at ground floor level must not exceed 2 metres. A schedule to any zone can add more.
Minimum garden area
| Lot size | Minimum garden area |
|---|---|
| more than 650 m² | 35 % |
| more than 500 m² | 30 % |
| at least 400 m² | 25 % |
Read top down; the first band that matches wins. `overSqm` is a strict lower bound, `atLeastSqm` is inclusive — the ordinance says 25 per cent of a lot of 400 m² to 500 m², 30 per cent of more than 500 m² to 650 m², 35 per cent of more than 650 m². No match (a lot under 400 m²) means no minimum garden area requirement.
Clauses 32.08-4 and 32.09-4 (VC253). Clause 73.01 defines garden area as any area on the lot with a minimum dimension of 1 metre that is not the building (eaves to 600 mm, pergolas, unroofed decks under 800 mm and outbuildings up to 10 m² are forgiven), not a driveway, and not an area set aside for car parking. The requirement applies to lots above 400 m²; Building Regulations 2018 reg 76A repeats the same percentages at building-permit stage.
Siting — Building Regulations 2018
- Maximum site coverage
- 60 %
- Minimum permeable surface
- 20 %
- Minimum side and rear setback
- 1 m — for walls up to 3.6 m high
Building Regulations 2018 reg 76(2) — buildings must not occupy more than 60 per cent of the allotment unless a zone schedule states otherwise; reg 77(2) requires at least 20 per cent permeable surface; Table 79 requires a 1 metre side and rear setback for walls up to 3.6 metres high. Reg 68 applies Part 5 siting wherever no planning permit regulates the matter — which is the whole point of relying on Clause 52.23.
Car parking
- Rate
- 0.25 spaces per bedroom, fractions rounded down
- For a 9-bedroom rooming house
- 2 spaces
- Of which accessible
- 1 spaces
Clause 52.06-5 Table 1 (VC311, 9 June 2026) — 0.25 spaces per bedroom on Category 1 and 2 land, fractions rounded down: 9 bedrooms gives 2 spaces. NCC Volume One D4D6(2) then takes 2 × (1 accessible bedroom ÷ 9) = 0.22 up to the next whole figure, so one of the two must be an accessible space. Building Regulations 2018 reg 78 reaches the same count of two.
What each overlay does to the exemption
An overlay is a separate control with its own permit trigger, and Clause 52.23 does not touch it. The 5-metre, muted-tones carve-out that a small second dwelling enjoys under Clauses 43.01-3, 43.02-2 and 43.05-2 is written for that use only and never applies to a rooming house — which is why the Heritage, Design and Development and Neighbourhood Character overlays are graded harder here than they would be for a granny flat.
- block
- Permit required, and ordinarily treated as an exclusion until the responsible authority says otherwise
- permit
- Planning permit required — this overlay removes the Clause 52.23-3 exemption for a rooming house
- caution
- May add a condition, a referral or a design constraint without removing the exemption
- info
- A cost or plan-conformity item, with no permit trigger of its own
| Code | Overlay | Effect | Clause |
|---|---|---|---|
| FO | Floodway Overlay | block | 44.03 |
| PAO | Public Acquisition Overlay | block | 45.01 |
| RFO | Rural Floodway Overlay | block | 44.09 |
| BAO | Buffer Area Overlay | permit | 44.08 |
| BMO | Bushfire Management Overlay | permit | 44.06 |
| DDO | Design and Development Overlay | permit | 43.02 |
| EAO | Environmental Audit Overlay | permit | 45.03 |
| EMO | Erosion Management Overlay | permit | 44.01 |
| ESO | Environmental Significance Overlay | permit | 42.01 |
| HO | Heritage Overlay | permit | 43.01 |
| LSIO | Land Subject to Inundation Overlay | permit | 44.04 |
| NCO | Neighbourhood Character Overlay | permit | 43.05 |
| RO | Restructure Overlay | permit | 45.05 |
| SBO | Special Building Overlay | permit | 44.05 |
| SCO | Specific Controls Overlay | permit | 45.12 |
| SLO | Significant Landscape Overlay | permit | 42.03 |
| SMO | Salinity Management Overlay | permit | 44.02 |
| AEO | Airport Environs Overlay | caution | 45.02 |
| BFO | Built Form Overlay | caution | 43.06 |
| CLPO | City Link Project Overlay | caution | 45.07 |
| MAEO | Melbourne Airport Environs Overlay | caution | 45.08 |
| PO | Parking Overlay | caution | 45.09 |
| PSB | Protected Settlement Boundary | caution | 45.13 |
| RXO | Road Closure Overlay | caution | 45.04 |
| SRO | State Resource Overlay | caution | 44.07 |
| VPO | Vegetation Protection Overlay | caution | 42.02 |
| DCPO | Development Contributions Plan Overlay | info | 45.06 |
| DPO | Development Plan Overlay | info | 43.04 |
| ICO | Infrastructure Contributions Overlay | info | 45.11 |
| ICPO | Infrastructure Contributions Plan Overlay | info | 45.10 |
| IPO | Incorporated Plan Overlay | info | 43.03 |
What Clause 52.23 does not remove
Clause 52.23 removes a PLANNING permit only. A building permit and occupancy permit are always required (Building Act 1993 ss 16, 39), the building is NCC Class 1b, the operator needs a Business Licensing Authority licence (Rooming House Operators Act 2016 s 7), the premises must be registered with the council as prescribed accommodation (Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 s 67), no bedroom may be smaller than 7.5 m² (Prescribed Accommodation Regulations 2020 reg 11(2)) and there must be one toilet, one bath or shower and one wash basin per 10 residents (reg 20). A restrictive covenant or a Section 173 agreement on title is checked on the certificate of title, not on the planning map.
The shared-facilities test
Meeting every number in Clause 52.23 does not by itself make a building a rooming house. VCAT has held the opposite where residents could live entirely on private facilities.
Studio Homes Victoria Pty Ltd v Brimbank CC [2022] VCAT 1371 — nine studios with private kitchenettes met every number in Clause 52.23 and were still held not to be a rooming house, because residents could rely exclusively on private facilities. An ensuite does not have that effect; a per-room kitchenette does.
Queensland
Queensland has NO statewide equivalent of Clause 52.23. Rooming accommodation is defined by the Planning Regulation 2017 and then assessed against the LOCAL planning scheme, whose zone tables, overlays and acceptable outcomes are not reachable from a browser. This screen therefore never returns an eligible verdict in Queensland: it reports the state layers that did answer and says plainly that the council scheme decides. Never imply a council overlay was checked.
Council planning schemes are not published as a queryable service. Any answer claiming a Queensland council overlay was checked from a spatial layer is wrong — including ours, which is why the address check never returns an eligible verdict in Queensland.
| Code | Layer | Effect | Instrument |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASS | Acid sulfate soils trigger area (State Planning Policy) | caution | State Planning Policy — acid sulfate soils trigger area |
| HER | Queensland Heritage Register place | permit | Queensland Heritage Register (Queensland Heritage Act 1992) |
| COASTAL | Coastal erosion prone area | permit | Coastal Protection and Management Act 1995 — erosion prone area |
Source register
Each entry is the instrument the figures above were read from, quoted so the reading can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Clause 52.23
- Victoria Planning Provisions Clause 52.23 Rooming house. 52.23-2 removes the zone permit for the USE in ten zones (VC274, 28 February 2025) where the zone-table condition is met, the total floor area of all buildings on the land does not exceed 300 m² excluding outbuildings, no more than 12 persons are accommodated and no more than 9 bedrooms are provided. 52.23-3 removes the permit for BUILDINGS AND WORKS in six of those zones on the same 300 m² and 9-bedroom limits, provided every bedroom is accessed only from within the building, shared entry facilities and common areas including a kitchen and living area are provided, and the zone's minimum garden area is kept in the General or Neighbourhood Residential Zone (VC257, 25 February 2025).
- Shared facilities (VCAT)
- Studio Homes Victoria Pty Ltd v Brimbank CC [2022] VCAT 1371 — nine studios with private kitchenettes met every number in Clause 52.23 and were still held not to be a rooming house, because residents could rely exclusively on private facilities. An ensuite does not have that effect; a per-room kitchenette does.
- Minimum garden area
- Clauses 32.08-4 and 32.09-4 (minimum garden area 25 / 30 / 35 per cent) with the Clause 73.01 definition; Building Regulations 2018 reg 76A repeats it at building-permit stage.
- Siting
- Building Regulations 2018 reg 76(2) — buildings must not occupy more than 60 per cent of the allotment unless a zone schedule states otherwise; reg 77(2) requires at least 20 per cent permeable surface; Table 79 requires a 1 metre side and rear setback for walls up to 3.6 metres high. Reg 68 applies Part 5 siting wherever no planning permit regulates the matter — which is the whole point of relying on Clause 52.23.
- Overlays
- An overlay is a separate control with its own permit trigger and Clause 52.23 does not touch it. The 5-metre, muted-tones carve-out in Clauses 43.01-3 (Heritage), 43.02-2 (Design and Development) and 43.05-2 (Neighbourhood Character) is written for a small second dwelling only and never applies to a rooming house.
- Car parking
- Clause 52.06-5 Table 1 (VC311, 9 June 2026) — 0.25 spaces per bedroom on Category 1 and 2 land, fractions rounded down: 9 bedrooms gives 2 spaces. NCC Volume One D4D6(2) then takes 2 × (1 accessible bedroom ÷ 9) = 0.22 up to the next whole figure, so one of the two must be an accessible space. Building Regulations 2018 reg 78 reaches the same count of two.
- Beyond planning
- Clause 52.23 removes a PLANNING permit only. A building permit and occupancy permit are always required (Building Act 1993 ss 16, 39), the building is NCC Class 1b, the operator needs a Business Licensing Authority licence (Rooming House Operators Act 2016 s 7), the premises must be registered with the council as prescribed accommodation (Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 s 67), no bedroom may be smaller than 7.5 m² (Prescribed Accommodation Regulations 2020 reg 11(2)) and there must be one toilet, one bath or shower and one wash basin per 10 residents (reg 20). A restrictive covenant or a Section 173 agreement on title is checked on the certificate of title, not on the planning map.
- Definition
- Planning Regulation 2017 (Qld) schedule 24 — 'rooming accommodation' is a residential use of premises for accommodation where each resident has a right to occupy one or more rooms and does not have a right to occupy the whole; it is a separate defined use from a dwelling house and a secondary dwelling.
- Assessment
- Whether rooming accommodation is accepted, code assessable or impact assessable, and what it must provide, is set by the LOCAL categorising instrument — the council's planning scheme. It varies by council and by zone, and it is not published as a browser-queryable spatial service.
- Siting
- Queensland Development Code MP 1.2 (lots 450 m² and over) — side and rear setback at least 1.5 m for walls up to 4.5 m mean height, 6 m to the road, site cover 50 per cent. MP 1.1 applies below 450 m². The Queensland Housing Code chapters published 14 August 2026 replace these only in councils that adopt them during the 1 September 2026 – 1 September 2029 transition.
- Building
- Building Act 1975 and the NCC apply as they do in Victoria: a building of this size and occupancy is Class 1b or Class 3 depending on floor area and resident numbers, and the classification is the building certifier's.
The Victoria Planning Provisions viewer addresses each clause by a numeric ordinance id that changes at every republication. These are current as at the verification date; older ids return “Ordinance was not found”.
| Clause | Ordinance id | Open |
|---|---|---|
| 3203 | 20769560 | VPP |
| 5206 | 20770190 | VPP |
| 5223 | 20770315 | VPP |
| 7301 | 20770858 | VPP |
| 7303 | 20770860 | VPP |
| 5223-2 | 20770317 | VPP |
| 5223-3 | 20770318 | VPP |
| 3208-2 | 20769620 | VPP |
| 3208-4 | 20769622 | VPP |
| 3209-4 | 20769639 | VPP |
| 3208-7 | 20769625 | VPP |
Current VC313-republication ordinance IDs, read 19 September 2026. The 20468xxx IDs used on the group's older pages are stale and the viewer answers 'Ordinance was not found'.
General information compiled from the primary instruments named on each record, read on the verification date shown. Not legal, planning, building or financial advice. Planning schemes, the Building Regulations and the Queensland Development Code are amended frequently, and a schedule to a zone or overlay can vary a figure for one council — verify the current instrument for the specific lot before relying on it. Where a control could not be read from the issuing body's own document — every Queensland local planning scheme, which is not published as a queryable service — the record says so rather than carrying a guess.
Test an address against this rule set
The address check runs every figure on this page against the live government layers for one lot, and tells you which tests it could not read.