CivicLabsCivic Technology
Early access · Victorian councils

Your planning scheme, turned into instant answers — with the clause to prove it.

SitePermit lets residents and builders check what they can do at any address in your municipality. Every answer is grounded in your actual planning scheme and traced back to the zone, overlay and clause it came from — so your team fields fewer repeat enquiries and receives better-prepared applications.

Join the waitlist → See how it works
Built for Victoria Planning Provisions Zones, overlays & ResCode aware Melbourne based

The problem

Your planners are answering the same questions instead of assessing applications

Most planning enquiries aren't complex. They're the same handful of questions about zones, overlays and setbacks — asked at the counter, by phone and by email, over and over.

Incomplete lodgements trigger Requests for Further Information, stopping the statutory clock and frustrating applicants.

Repetitive pre-application enquiries consume officer hours that should go to genuine assessment.

Inconsistent advice between officers and over time creates disputes and erodes trust in the process.

Statutory timeframes stay under pressure while applicants turn to social media for planning advice — and get it wrong.

SitePermit

Self-service answers your planners can stand behind

A public-facing site check, powered by your own planning scheme — not a generic chatbot guessing at the rules.

Address-level site check

Enter an address and a proposal. SitePermit identifies the zone, overlays and provisions that actually apply to that parcel.

Every answer cites its clause

Results reference the exact provision, schedule and overlay relied on — so applicants and officers can verify the reasoning.

Pathway triage

Directs each enquiry to the right route — exempt, VicSmart, or a full planning permit application — before anyone lodges.

Application readiness

Generates the document checklist for that specific proposal, so what arrives at your counter is complete.

Deterministic, not generative guesswork

It evaluates the rules rather than predicting text — and when a matter needs officer judgement, it says so and refers on.

Enquiry insight

See what your community is asking, where confusion clusters, and which provisions generate the most friction.

How it works

Live in weeks, validated by your planners

We do the heavy lifting. Nothing goes public until your team is satisfied the answers are right.

1

We load your scheme

Your planning scheme, local schedules, overlays and policies — structured into a rules model.

2

Your planners validate

Officers review results against real scenarios until the outputs match how your council applies the scheme.

3

Publish to your site

Embed the site check on your planning pages, in your branding, on your domain.

4

Monitor & refine

Every answer is logged. You see enquiry patterns and we tune as schemes and amendments change.

For councils

Designed to take load off the team, not add to it

SitePermit is built to reduce avoidable work at the front of the process — where most delay is created.

Fewer incomplete applications — applicants know what's required before they lodge.
Fewer routine enquiries — the simple questions answer themselves, day or night.
Consistent advice — the same question gets the same cited answer every time.
Protected statutory timeframes — cleaner lodgements mean fewer RFIs stopping the clock.
A better community experience — clear answers instead of "you'll need to speak to a planner".
No new headcount — capacity created from the work you stop repeating.

Built on the framework your officers already work in

SitePermit speaks the language of the Victoria Planning Provisions — not a generic approximation of "council rules". It models the instruments that actually determine an outcome at a given address.

Zones (GRZ · NRZ · RGZ · MUZ · C1Z)Heritage OverlayBushfire Management OverlayDesign & Development OverlayNeighbourhood Character OverlayLand Subject to InundationSpecial Building OverlayVegetation ProtectionResCode Cl. 54 & 55Particular provisionsVicSmart pathwaysSection 173 agreementsLocal policy & schedules

Trust & governance

Built for the standards public sector work demands

Engineered by a team from regulated, high-assurance environments — where "mostly right" was never acceptable.

Council remains the decision-maker

SitePermit provides guidance, never a determination. It states its limits clearly and refers matters requiring judgement to your officers.

Auditable by design

Every answer is logged with the provisions it relied on and the inputs it was given, so any result can be reconstructed and reviewed.

Australian data residency

Hosted in Australian cloud infrastructure with security, access control and privacy considered from the first line of code.

It says when it doesn't know

Where a proposal turns on discretion or missing information, SitePermit abstains and routes the enquirer to council rather than guessing.

Early access

Help shape it — before it's built around someone else's council

We're partnering with a small number of Victorian councils for early access. Foundation partners get direct input into the roadmap and priority onboarding.

A walkthrough with real addresses from your municipality
Input into which provisions and workflows we model first
Foundation pricing and priority onboarding
No obligation — a conversation, not a procurement process

We'll only use your details to talk to you about SitePermit.

Questions

What councils ask us first

Does SitePermit give planning advice or make determinations?
No. Council remains the responsible authority. SitePermit provides guidance grounded in the planning scheme, shows the provisions it relied on, and directs the enquirer to council when a matter requires officer judgement. It is presented to the public as guidance, with that limitation stated clearly.
How is this different from an AI chatbot?
SitePermit is deterministic. It evaluates the provisions that actually apply to an address rather than generating a plausible-sounding answer, cites every clause it used, and abstains when the answer isn't clear-cut. That distinction matters when the output is public-facing and attributable to your council.
What if our scheme changes or an amendment lands?
Scheme amendments are part of the service. We track changes to your scheme, schedules and policies and update the rules model, with your planners confirming before changes go live.
How much work is it for our team?
We load your scheme and build the rules model. Your team's involvement is validation — reviewing results against real scenarios you know the answers to, until you're confident. That's the step we won't skip.
Where is the data hosted?
In Australian cloud infrastructure, with auditable logging of every answer and the provisions behind it. We're happy to work through your information security and privacy requirements as part of onboarding.
Which councils and states can use it?
We're starting with Victorian councils and the Victoria Planning Provisions, including local schedules and policies. Other states follow — the constraint model is built to travel, even though the terminology doesn't.
What does it cost?
Early-access councils get foundation pricing and direct input into the roadmap. Join the waitlist and we'll talk through scope, pricing and what a pilot would look like for your municipality.