Corner Block Subdivision in West Australia

Do you own a potential corner block subdivision?

Corner block subdivision has become a hot topic in western Australia. Some important State Planning Policy changes have been gazetted by way of Development Control Policy 2.2 (DC2.2). In particular, they will affect the subdivision potential of corner lots in suburbs across the Perth metropolitan region. And effect subdivision potential in a good way we might add!

If you have that oddly shaped corner lot with a poorly placed house that you just don’t seem to be able to develop or subdivide, the new policy updates may provide the answer to unlocking development potential. The changes may provide you with a simple avenue for subdividing a tricky corner lot without the need for Development Applications and other hurdles presented by Local Government and the WAPC to meet provisional zoning requirements or try to get variations to minimum and average lot sizes approved.

A lot size variation greater than 5 per cent may be approved if it meets the following criteria:

• a single residential coding of R10 to R35 applies to the land
• the site is a corner lot with frontage to more than one road (excluding a regional road) or has dedicated road access or right-of-way access to both front and rear boundaries
• the proposed lots comply with the minimum frontage requirements specified in Table 1 of the R-Codes and are regular in shape
• any corner truncation is excluded from the calculation of the average lot size

A site with corner block subdivision potential

In simple terms, for corner lots we can now do the following; we only have to use the minimum lot size to for lots in the development without meeting the average lot size for the overall site as specified in the R-codes. This is applicable to any corner lot subdivision submission if the land is zoned residential, with a single coding from R10 to R35.

For example, if the above site (lot 46) was R25, the average lot size at R25 is 350m2, meaning 1050m2 total would be required for a compliant corner lot subdivision. The site is too small for this, so only 2 lots can be done if we followed the old rules. Now however, we only need to meet the minimum (300m2), so for 3 lots we need only 900m2, making this corner block subdivision a triplex site (993m2 available). You can learn more about minimum and average lot size requirements on the can I subdivide land page of our website.