Excavation in Berkeley Vale
Much of Berkeley Vale's low land is both floodplain soil and mapped flood planning land, so a dig here raises two questions at once: what the ground will do, and whether the soil can stay on the block. Under Council's controls for the former Wyong area, filling isn't permitted in flood storage unless an adopted floodplain plan allows it.
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Excavation around Berkeley Vale
The state soil survey maps that land as the Wyong landscape: broad, poorly drained floodplains and alluvial flats with slopes under 3%. It rates the foundation hazard high, because of the flooding hazard and a moderately shrink-swell subsoil, and warns that localised areas of high acid sulphate soil and swampy ground with high organic content may occur. Council's acid sulfate soils map puts a large share of the suburb's housing in Classes 2 to 4, where consent is triggered by any work below the ground surface, or below 1 or 2 metres.
Council's flood planning mapping over Berkeley Vale comes mainly from the Tuggerah Lakes southern catchments study and the Tuggerah Lakes flood mapping, with flood storage on the lower ground. In flood planning precinct 2, filling needs a report from a suitably qualified engineer that Council has approved, and in flood storage it isn't permitted unless an adopted floodplain plan allows it. That covers raising a building platform, and it covers spreading dug-out soil to lift a low yard.
Permits and Central Coast Council rules
Acid sulfate classes change the approval route too. Complying development can't be carried out on Class 1 or 2 land, and on Class 3 or 4 land the Housing Code caps excavation at 1 metre deep, so a pool on the wetter parts of Berkeley Vale may need a development application. Check both maps for your own lot before a dig is designed, because different parts of the suburb read differently.
Source: Central Coast LEP 2022 cl 7.1; Central Coast DCP 2022 Chapter 3.1 Part B, 3.1.5.3(a); Exempt and Complying Development Codes SEPP 2008 cl 1.19(1)(c) and 3.30(2) — confirm current requirements with Central Coast Council.
Our Berkeley Vale service area
Berkeley Vale enquiries go on to an independent provider, who contacts you to see the site.
See all Excavation on the Central Coast. We also work in Bateau Bay, towards the coast, where the ground is sand and claystone instead.
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