Building permits and planning permits in Victoria

Approvals8 min readReviewed 7 September 2026

New South Wales runs approvals through one consent pathway with a certifier attached. Victoria does not. It runs two independent systems, and the order in which they happen is not negotiable.

The two permits, and who issues them

A planning permit comes from the council, under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the planning scheme that applies to your site. It deals with whether the use and the development are acceptable in that location: land use, car parking, amenity, hours, signage, overlays.

A building permit comes from a registered building surveyor, private or municipal, under the Building Act 1993 and the Building Regulations 2018. It deals with whether what you are building complies: structure, fire safety, access, egress, services.

They answer different questions and neither one substitutes for the other. The sequence matters because a building surveyor cannot issue a building permit that would be inconsistent with a planning permit, so if a planning permit is required it has to come first.

Does a medical centre need a planning permit?

It depends on the zone and the schedule to that zone, which is why the honest answer to this question always starts with the address.

In many commercial zones a medical centre is a permit-required use rather than an as-of-right one, and changing an office or a shop into a clinic is a change of use that needs assessment even where no building work is visible from the street. Car parking is usually the deciding issue: the planning scheme sets a rate for the use, and an existing tenancy that satisfied it as a shop may not satisfy it as a practice with six consulting rooms.

Overlays complicate it further. Heritage, design and development, and parking overlays each add their own triggers, and a site can sit under more than one.

This is a question for a town planner reading the scheme against your specific address, and it is worth paying for before you sign rather than after. It is the single most common reason a Melbourne tenancy that looked ideal turns out not to be.

VicSmart, and when it helps

VicSmart is a streamlined planning permit pathway. Where an application qualifies, the council decides it within 10 business days rather than the standard 60 day statutory period, and the application is exempt from public notice and from third party review.

The catch is eligibility. An application only qualifies if it is listed as a VicSmart class in the relevant planning scheme and meets the criteria for that class, in the specified zone or overlay. It is not a fast lane you can request; it is a category your application either falls into or does not.

The other condition is completeness. The 10 day clock assumes the council has everything it needs at lodgement, so a VicSmart application submitted with gaps loses the advantage it was lodged for.

What the building surveyor needs

Once planning is resolved, the building permit is a documentation exercise, and it moves at the speed of your consultants rather than the council.

• Architectural drawings and specifications
• Structural documentation where you are touching the structure
• Mechanical, hydraulic and electrical design, which for a clinical tenancy carries AS 1668.2 ventilation rates an office fitout does not
• An access report against AS 1428.1
• Fire safety documentation, and a performance solution where anything departs from the deemed-to-satisfy provisions
• Any report and consent from council required under the regulations

The classification question sits underneath all of it. A tenancy that becomes Class 9a carries construction requirements a Class 5 or Class 6 tenancy does not, and which class you land in is a determination the building surveyor makes rather than a label you choose.

What you need at the end

The building permit itself specifies which completion document applies. For a fitout that changes the use or the classification it is normally an occupancy permit, issued by the building surveyor once they are satisfied the building is suitable to occupy. For some alteration work it is a certificate of final inspection instead, which closes off the permit without certifying suitability for occupation.

You cannot lawfully open on the strength of a finished fitout. The rest of the detail, and what usually holds these up, is in the guide to occupancy certificates.

Victoria also carries an ongoing obligation that surprises tenants from other states. Essential safety measures identified on the permit have to be maintained for the life of the building, and the building owner is required to prepare an annual essential safety measures report. It is small money and easy to do, and it is the sort of thing that surfaces during a lease assignment when nobody has done it for four years.

A note on who regulates this now

Victoria's building regulator changed. The Victorian Building Authority was abolished and its functions moved to the Building and Plumbing Commission on 1 July 2025, which now handles registration of building surveyors, enforcement and dispute resolution in one body. If you are reading older guidance that refers to the VBA, the substance is usually still right but the regulator's name is not.