Wallan is the northern end of the Hume growth corridor, where the basalt plain runs out against the Great Dividing Range. It sits in Mitchell Shire Council, not Hume or Whittlesea, so planning, overlays and report and consent go through Mitchell; the building permit itself comes from a private registered building surveyor. We work across Wallan every week, so inspections are booked around your pour.
Estates and the older town
New-home work is in the estates on the town’s edges. Wallara Waters on Wallan-Whittlesea Road is the largest, built around wetlands and stormwater basins, with Newbridge beside it. Springridge climbs the undulating ground off the Northern Highway on the north side of town, and Wallan Valley, closest to the town centre, backs onto the Taylors Creek trail. Lots are compact family blocks, each with a building envelope and developer design guidelines covering setbacks, garage position and facade. Estate design approval comes first; we then assess the permit against the siting provisions in Part 5 of the Building Regulations 2018 and the NCC. Where the two disagree, usually on a side setback or a boundary wall, the fix is a report and consent from Mitchell Shire, flagged early.
Hidden Valley is different: larger lots around the golf course, up to acreage. Shed and workshop country, and most of what goes up there is well past the exemption; our guide on whether a shed needs a permit explains where the line sits.
The older town around High Street, Wellington Square and the station has larger blocks with houses from the seventies and eighties. Knock-down rebuilds and extensions are common there; the demolition permit and Section 29A consent run alongside the new-home permit so the timing works.
Two soils, two footing stories
South and east of town the ground is Newer Volcanic basalt and creek alluvium, and the clay that weathers from it is often highly reactive, with fill on top where a lot has been cut or filled. The soil report sets the class, and the slab and footings are designed to it. North and west, the hills are older siltstone and sandstone bedrock: shallower, generally less reactive, but sloped. There the issue is the cut-and-fill pad and the retaining wall holding it. The key threshold is a metre in height: a wall of a metre or more needs a permit, and a wall that is associated with other building work or protects a neighbour’s land is caught at any height. Either way it needs its own permit and an engineer’s design. We check the soil report against the footing design before the permit goes out, and again at the footing inspection.
The wooded hills on the town’s fringes, including parts of Hidden Valley, can carry a Bushfire Management Overlay or sit in the designated bushfire prone area, and land along Taylors Creek, Merri Creek and Wallan Creek and the low-lying parts of Wallan East may carry a flood overlay. Both change the construction standard, so give us the address early.
Work in demand
New homes for builders in the estates, sheds and garages on Hidden Valley and rural-living blocks, retaining walls on sloped lots, and verandahs, pergolas and decks added after handover and checked against the estate guidelines as well as the exemption rules.
Nearby
We also cover Beveridge, Kilmore, Kalkallo and Donnybrook, plus Mickleham, Craigieburn, Wollert and Sunbury. See our Northern Melbourne page for the full list.