Technical Description

Planning is created through the spatial intersection of Cadastre cadastral polygon centroids with planning zone spatial boundaries. Through this process, a planning zone code and its associated descriptive information are associated with a cadastral polygon. In areas where State and local Government planning zone sources are both used to build the dataset, and these overlap one another, the local Government source has been prioritised for the relationship.

All non-Road Cadastre polygons are utilised in the assignment process, inclusive of all parcel_status values.

Planning is created from a range of State, Territory and local Government data which is revised regularly and supplied in varying formats and levels of quality. Planning zone code values for these source datasets differ greatly across jurisdictions and local governments due to unique planning regulations between States and also between Local Government Areas (LGAs). A ‘psma_description’ attribute has been included for each planning record to serve as a general description of the planning zone codes across Australia and ease understanding of the data at a national level. Planning zone codes are not necessarily unique across Australia or by LGA.

Planning uses a process of spatial intersection at the centroid of a parcel and in the case of overlapping planning zones chooses a single planning zone classification. Therefore, it is not suitable for uses that require definitive planning information. In such cases, users should contact the relevant State, Territory or local Government planning authority for authoritative planning scheme information.

Geoscape Australia welcomes your feedback on the Planning product. We also publish regular updates on the development of our products on the Geoscape website (www.geoscape.com.au).

Attributes

Zone Code

The Zone Code is the code related to the planning zone provided by each jurisdiction or council. The Zone Code is related to the cadastral polygon that intersects with the supplied planning zone polygon. In areas where data was supplied by a local Government this was prioritised over a supply from the State government.

Primary Zone Description

The Primary Zone Description is directly related to the Zone Code and informs about the meaning of the code. This description can be used as a brief explanation of the planning zone or planning zone use that is related to the cadastral polygon.

Where the Zone Code is supplied as a description the Primary Zone Description may be the same as the Zone Code.

Secondary Zone Description

The Secondary Zone Description can give further information on the planning zone or planning zone use related to the cadastral polygon. Generally, this describes what is currently built or planned to be developed within the planning zone.

PSMA Description

The PSMA Description gives a generalised description used by Geoscape Australia for the Zone Code assigned to a cadastral polygon. This information was created by Geoscape Australia to provide a nationally consistent description of the planning zones across Australia.

Source

The Source provides the name of the State or local Government authority that the planning data was sourced from.

URL

The URL attribute provides a direct link to the planning website of the State or local Government that the planning zone data was sourced from. This URL can be used to access further information and detailed descriptions about the planning zone codes directly from each jurisdiction.

Data Model

Data Dictionary

planning

Attribute	Data Type	Description	Primary Key	Mandatory Field	Foreign Key Table	Foreign Key Column	10 Character Alias
cad_polygon_pid	Character String (15)	The persistent identifier for the Cadastre record* that is spatially related to the planning zone.	Yes	Yes	cadastre	cadastre_polygon_pid	CD_PLY_PID
cad_pid	Character String (15)	The unique persistent identifier for each Cadastre record* that is spatially related to the planning zone.	Yes	Yes	cadastre	cadastre_pid	CAD_PID
date_created	Date	The date that the planning-cadastre relationship has been created.	No	Yes			DT_CREATE
state	Character String (3)	The abbreviated name of the State or Territory related to the Planning Zone data.	No	Yes			STATE
zone_code	Character String (90)	The detailed planning zone code provided by the jurisdiction or council that is related to the cadastral polygon.	No	Yes			ZONE_CODE
primary_zone_description	Character String (100)	Descriptive information about the planning zone or planning zone use that is related to the cadastral polygon.	No	Yes			ZN_DESC_1
secondary_zone_description	Character String (100)	Ancillary descriptive information about the planning zone or planning zone use that is related to the cadastral polygon.	No	No			ZN_DESC_2
psma_description	Character String (30)	The generalised planning zone description used by Geoscape Australia for the assigned planning zone.	No	No			PSMA_DESC
source	Character String (40)	The State or local Government source of the planning data.	No	Yes			SOURCE
url	Character String (125)	The web address location of the planning instrument or scheme relating to the associated planning zone information.	No	Yes			URL

Domain Values

psma_description

Domain Value	Description
COMMERCIAL/BUSINESS	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate a commercial or business focus.
COMMUNITY USE	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate community use.
CONSERVATION/NATIONAL PARK	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate National Park or a conservation requirement.
INDUSTRIAL/UTILITIES	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate industrial activities and/or utility facilities.
MIXED USE	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate mixed use.
RECREATIONAL/OPEN SPACE	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate recreational activities and/or open space.
RESIDENTIAL	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate residential.
RURAL/PRIMARY PRODUCTION	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate rural and/or primary production activities.
SPECIAL USE	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate special use.
TRANSPORT/INFRASTRUCTURE	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate transport and/or other infrastructure.
WATER	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme generally indicate waterways or other water areas.
<NULL>	Areas where the state, territory or local government planning scheme does not generally indicate one of the above classes.

Update Frequency

Planning is released on a quarterly schedule against the latest Cadastre data, with planning data updated bi-annually.

Planning Release Month	Cadastre Release Month used in Planning	Planning Zone Source Data Cut-off Month used in Planning
March	February	February
June	May	February
September	August	August
December	November	August

Extent/Geographic Description

Planning is an aspatial dataset and therefore has no spatial coverage unless joined to Cadastre. Once joined to Cadastre, Planning has spatial coverage across all States and Territories. Planning information may not be available for land held by the Commonwealth, as this land is not managed by State or local Government authorities.

A detailed description of the coverage for each State and Territory is provided in the table below.

State or Territory Name	State (Abbreviation)	Coverage
Australian Capital Territory	ACT	Complete coverage.
New South Wales	NSW	State wide coverage. The north-western corner of the State is not included due to a lack of planning data available in this area.
Northern Territory	NT	Coverage of major urban centres and towns (Darwin, Alice Springs, etc.). Coverage of the remainder of the State is not included due to lack of available planning data in these areas.
Other Territories	OT	Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are included. Jervis Bay and Norfolk Island are not included due to lack of available planning data in these areas.
Queensland	QLD	State wide coverage. There are a small number of areas where planning data is unavailable, mostly on the northern peninsula of the State. State-sourced planning data for Queensland was last updated in 2010 and is no longer maintained. For this reason, planning data has also been sourced from local Government sources with significant population for: Brisbane City Council Bundaberg Regional Council Burdekin Shire Council Cairns Regional Council City of Gold Coast City of Ipswich City of Townsville Fraser Coast Regional Council Lockyer Valley Regional Council Logan City Council Mareeba Shire Council Moreton Bay Regional Council Noosa Council Redland City Council Sunshine Coast Council Toowoomba Regional Council For all other areas across Queensland state-sourced planning data is used where available. Local Government planning data has been prioritised where there is an overlap with State sourced data.
South Australia	SA	State wide coverage.
Tasmania	TAS	State wide coverage.
Victoria	VIC	Complete coverage.
Western Australia	WA	Coverage of major urban centres and towns, as well as most rural areas. Coverage in eastern rural areas and national parks are not included due to lack of available planning data in these areas.

Delivery Format

Planning is provided at a National and State/Territory level, depending on the file format selected. The data is made available in the File Geodatabase, JSON, ESRI Shapefile (DBF) and MapInfo TAB formats described below.

Format	National	State/Territory
File Geodatabase	Yes	Yes
JSON	Yes	Yes
ESRI Shapefile (DBF)	No	Yes
MapInfo TAB	No	Yes

File Geodatabase

Format name

File Geodatabase – ESRI™

Specification

This format includes files with the following extensions: *.gdb

ESRI File Geodatabase Technical Description. Follow this link: http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/desktop/latest/manage-data/administer-file-gdbs/file-geodatabases.htm

Language

English

JSON

Format name

JSON

Specification

This format includes files with the following extensions: *.json

JSON specification: https://www.json.org/json-en.html

Language

English

ESRI Shapefile (*.dbf)

Format name

Shape – ESRI™

Specification

This format includes files with the following extensions: *.dbf

ESRI Shapefile Technical Description, an ESRI White Paper, July 1998. Follow this link: https://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf

Language

English

Size Limitations

Where a DBF file exceeds the file size limit of 2GB, the file will be split into two (or more) files. The NSW Planning DBF exceeds the 2GB limit and has been split into two parts, one named ‘nsw_planning.dbf’ and the other named ‘nsw_planning_1.dbf’. Files exceeding the next 2GB increment will be suffixed by ‘_2’, then ‘_3’ for the next increment, and so on.

MapInfo TAB

Format name

TAB – MapInfo Professional™

Specification

This format includes files with the following extensions: *.tab, *.dat, *.id, *.map

The MapInfo TAB format is a popular geospatial vector data format for geographic information systems software. It is developed and regulated by MapInfo as a proprietary format. TAB files support geospatial standards such as Open GIS, the OGC, ISO, W3C and others.

Language

English

Product Versioning

Planning versioning is managed through incrementing when there is a change to the product schema or a significant change in data population, these are described further below:

• A schema change can affect a major or minor increment to the versioning. Additive changes (changes that won’t break customers’ ability to work with the data) will be incremented with a minor version increment, an example is the addition of a new attribute. Removal of attributes or changing the structure of the Planning schema will enact a major change to identify that this requires the attention of all customers and partners.

• Where a significant geography of Australia either has a new population of data for an attribute or is populated from a much higher quality source a minor increment will be applied to the product version.

Therefore, Planning versioning will not increment with every data update, published releases will have a name e.g. ‘June 2020’ and will reference a version of the Planning product e.g. ‘1.1’.