Western Australia's Clearing Permit: The Bushland Test Before You Design

CLEARING BUSH LAND CAN NEED ITS OWN PERMIT.WA: check vegetation requirements before designing the site.

You find a block on the edge of town with a development story that works. There is a clearing, services nearby, and enough area for the lots the numbers need. Part of the site is timber, and in the first layout the timber simply disappears.

In Western Australia that assumption can stop the project. Clearing native vegetation is prohibited unless a permit has been granted or an exemption applies, and the exemption is a full checklist rather than a general permission.

The deal question: how much native vegetation will your layout remove?

The starting position is set out in the current government material. The page on native vegetation clearing permit lodgement states that clearing of native vegetation is prohibited in Western Australia except where a clearing permit has been granted, or an exemption applies, and that a person who causes or allows unauthorised clearing commits an offence.

The companion page on native vegetation clearing permits then sets the permission pathway: you need a permit to clear native vegetation unless you either have an exemption or the department determined you did not need one during the clearing referral process.

So the feasibility question is measurable. How many hectares of native vegetation does your proposed design remove, what condition is it in, and does any exemption clearly cover it?

The trap: assuming uncleared land is the cheapest land

The commercial instinct is that timber on a block is free to remove. In Western Australia it is a regulated activity with a permit, a fee scale, a possible offset condition and an assessment that can be declined as incomplete.

Worse, the removal is a design decision made early and paid for late. The clearing area is set by the lot layout, the access, the building platforms, the services trench and the stormwater strategy. By the time the permit question is asked, the layout that created the clearing area is already drawn, and redrawing it costs design time and yield.

Exemptions exist, and the sensitive area rule catches people out

There is a genuine exemption pathway. The clearing permits page confirms you do not need a permit if you have an exemption or the department determined you did not need one during the clearing referral process.

It then adds the qualifier that most people miss. The page states that some exemptions do not apply within declared environmentally sensitive areas, and directs you to the Clearing Permit System map to determine whether an area you wish to clear is in an environmentally sensitive area. It also notes that you can order a property interest report from Landgate, for a fee, to obtain that information.

That is a two-part test, not one. An exemption that would cover the clearing on one side of a boundary may not apply on the other, and the difference is a map layer you can check before you buy.

What the assessment looks at, and why it decides your programme

The lodgement material lists the factors that influence the significance, complexity and time taken to assess an application: the size of the area proposed to be cleared; the location of that area; the sensitivity of the environment and the environmental values that occur within or adjacent to it; the techniques used to clear; and the purpose of the application, such as exploration, mining, development or infrastructure.

Every one of those factors is under your influence at design stage. A smaller clearing area, a location that avoids the most sensitive vegetation, a gentler clearing technique and a clearly stated development purpose all shorten the assessment. The same page recommends that detailed information is submitted with every application, new or amendment, specifically to reduce assessment timeframes.

The cost stack: application fee, offset, and the evidence pack

The clearing permit fees page sets out the published structure. The application fee is based on the application area in hectares and on whether the clearing is in an intensive or extensive land use zone, with the published amounts starting at $400 for not more than 1 hectare in either zone and rising with area. Purpose permits carry an additional purpose permit component fee, published at $2,000, and the page explains that this reflects the greater complexity of assessing and administering a permit that allows clearing of different areas from time to time.

The page then separates the offset from the fee. It states that if your clearing activity will result in significant residual environmental impacts, the department will put a condition on your permit for an offset to counterbalance those impacts, and that it follows the WA Environmental Offsets Policy and WA Environmental Offsets Guidelines when setting any offsets you must pay for. It also answers plainly that paying for an offset does not replace the assessment fee, because the two payments are for different purposes.

On a site with good condition vegetation, the offset line is often larger than everything else in the approval stack, and it appears nowhere in the land price.

An application also has a documentary cost. The lodgement material lists what a complete application contains: the correct and current application form signed by an authorised person; the prescribed fee, paid through the submissions portal and payable for purpose permits, area permits, amendment clearing permits and surrender applications; an ESRI shapefile of the proposed clearing area boundary; and a scaled map of the area proposed to clear. It adds that the shapefile for a purpose permit should show the outer extent of the proposed clearing areas, while the shapefile for an area permit should contain only the extent of the areas to be cleared.

That difference is not clerical. Choosing the wrong permit type changes what the application can authorise and what you must map, and the department may decline to deal with an application that is incomplete.

The site test a student would run, in order

1. Have the vegetation identified and mapped by an environmental consultant or botanist: extent, condition, any significant species or ecological community.
2. Check the Clearing Permit System map for environmentally sensitive area status, and order the property interest report if the map leaves the question open.
3. Establish the land use zone, because the fee scale and the assessment scrutiny both turn on it.
4. Test the exemptions against the actual clearing, including whether the sensitive area rule removes the exemption you were relying on.
5. Decide area permit or purpose permit on what the project genuinely needs to authorise, then prepare the shapefile and map for that permit type.
6. Price the assessment, the offset and the evidence pack into the feasibility, and test the design with a reduced clearing area against the design with the higher yield.
7. Decide the timing question before exchange: is the clearing referral or the permit application a condition precedent, or are you buying the risk?

What this does to the offer

Run the feasibility twice: the layout that clears the bushland, and a layout that retains it and designs around it. If the retaining layout holds most of the yield, the commercial answer is usually to keep the trees, because that removes the permit, the fee, the offset, the assessment delay and the offence risk in one decision.

If the clearing is essential, then the offset is the deal. Ask your environmental adviser for a desktop estimate of the residual impact and the offset range before you exchange, and put the number into the model rather than into the contingency line.

Practical next steps

You are not expected to solve this yourself. An environmental consultant or botanist identifies the vegetation, maps its extent and condition, and tests the exemptions. A town planner confirms how the clearing question sits with the local planning approval and any local scheme provisions. The department's clearing permitting team, or a suitably qualified adviser, confirms whether a permit or a referral is required and what offsets or conditions are likely. Confirm the current land use zone, the environmentally sensitive area status and the current fee schedule before you commit to a layout, a programme or a price.

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