Brisbane Suburbs We Build In

Brisbane's character provisions are applied at the level of individual streets and precincts, not whole suburbs. Two apparently similar houses a block apart can have entirely different options — one protected from demolition, the other freely replaceable.

That is why the council property report is the first step on any Brisbane project, and why it is worth pulling before you make an offer rather than after.

The inner western suburbs sit across a series of ridges, and falls of three or four metres across a block are ordinary. Retaining, engineered footings, drainage and access planning follow from that, and on a steep site they can rival the cost of the house itself.

Retaining in particular scales sharply with height. A wall retaining two metres costs several times per metre what one retaining half a metre does.

Overland flow paths — the routes water takes when the drainage system is overwhelmed — affect properties well away from any creek or river. Enoggera Creek in particular affects parts of Wilston, Ashgrove and Newmarket that look entirely dry.

Where a flood overlay applies, a minimum habitable floor level is set, and on a raise-and-build-under project that interacts directly with the permitted height under the character overlay.

Much of Brisbane sits on reactive clay, and the site classification under AS 2870 determines whether you need a conventional slab or an engineered footing system. The difference runs into tens of thousands.

An old timber house on stumps tells you nothing about this, because a stumped house tolerates ground movement that a rigid slab cannot. The soil test happens before design, not after.