Demolition Botany: Licensed Contractors and the Bayside Council Pathway

DA or CDC: how Bayside Council assesses a Botany demolition

Not every demolition needs a full development application. Some stand-alone jobs are exempt, and many straightforward knockdowns qualify as complying development, a faster code-based approval issued when the work meets set standards. That is a Complying Development Certificate, or CDC.

A Development Application, or DA, is the fuller route, assessed by the local council. For a property in Botany that council is Bayside Council, under the Bayside Local Environmental Plan 2021. Botany sits within the former Botany Bay Council area, so the applicable development control plan is the Botany Bay Development Control Plan, one of two Bayside kept from the councils it merged.

A demolition usually needs a DA rather than a CDC when the property is heritage-listed or in a conservation area, the work misses a condition of the complying-development code, the job is part of a larger redevelopment, or other planning constraints apply to the site. The DA is where a statement of environmental effects is prepared. Because the answer turns on your address, we confirm the pathway with Bayside before we quote.

The site conditions a Botany demolition can turn on

Knowing the area earns its place here. Bayside Council publishes a list of technical matters a proposal may be assessed against, and several line up with a suburb that is low-lying, industrial in parts and close to the airport. None is automatic, but on a Botany site these are worth expecting:

• Contamination in the ground. Where land has an industrial or commercial history, the council may want to know how contamination will be managed. Contaminated soil removal and land remediation are part of what we do, so it stays in one contract.
• Acid sulphate soils. Low ground near the bay can carry acid sulphate soils, and disturbing them is controlled, so Bayside may ask for an assessment before the ground is broken.
• A Sydney airport report. Because Botany is close to Sydney Airport, the council may call for a report checking the proposal against the controls on building near the airport.
• Flooding and stormwater. On flat, low land, how a site manages floodwater and stormwater can matter, and the council may want that set out.

For larger sites in the former Botany Council area, over 1,000 square metres, Bayside’s checklist also calls for a demolition traffic management plan and a hazardous materials survey. We work out which your site is likely to attract and fold the answer into the approval.