# Australian Zoning Atlas

> The Australian Zoning Atlas maps the restrictive planning controls
> that shape every Australian capital city—share of residential land
> capped at no more than 2 storeys, zoned low-density only, or covered by heritage
> overlays. All data is CC-BY 4.0, all pages are open to AI crawlers.

Snapshot: 2026-07-23
Maintainer: YIMBY Melbourne (contact@yimby.melbourne)

## Headline

The most important number on the site: https://zoning.org.au/cities—the share of
residential land within 5km, 10km, 20km, and 30km of each Australian
capital's CBD that's highly restricted. Hobart 99%, Brisbane 93%,
Melbourne 47% (20km, May 2026).

"Highly restricted" = union of (2-storey cap, low-density-only zoning,
heritage overlay) at parcel level. See /methodology/glossary#highly-restricted.

## Capital city profiles
- [Adelaide](https://zoning.org.au/cities/adelaide): South Australia (SA). Distances measured from Adelaide Station.
- [Brisbane](https://zoning.org.au/cities/brisbane): Queensland (QLD). Distances measured from Roma Street Station.
- [Canberra](https://zoning.org.au/cities/canberra): Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Distances measured from City Interchange.
- [Darwin](https://zoning.org.au/cities/darwin): Northern Territory (NT). Distances measured from Darwin GPO.
- [Hobart](https://zoning.org.au/cities/hobart): Tasmania (TAS). Distances measured from Hobart GPO.
- [Melbourne](https://zoning.org.au/cities/melbourne): Victoria (VIC). Distances measured from Flinders Street Station.
- [Perth](https://zoning.org.au/cities/perth): Western Australia (WA). Distances measured from Perth Station.
- [Sydney](https://zoning.org.au/cities/sydney): New South Wales (NSW). Distances measured from Central Station.

## Geography drill-down

- https://zoning.org.au/suburbs/<city>/<slug>—per-suburb breakdown (one page per ABS SAL; legacy /suburbs/<sal_code> 301-redirects here)
- https://zoning.org.au/councils/<city>/<slug>—per-council breakdown (legacy /councils/<lga_code> 301-redirects here)

## Reform scenarios

- https://zoning.org.au/reforms—four levers (Townhouse Code, abolish low-density, mid-rise everywhere, mid-rise on transit) costed against each city

## Compare + rank

- https://zoning.org.au/cities—the comparison hub: all 8 capitals ranked across 4 radii (5/10/20/30km) × 4 metrics, a side-by-side stat grid with per-ring overlays, and the 8×8 "what if one capital had another's zoning?" counterfactual swap matrix

## Raw data (machine-readable)

All datasets are available as JSON under https://zoning.org.au/data/json/ with
permissive CORS. The most useful entry points:

- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/suburbs.json—2,529 SAL rows per city with restricted_pct, le_2_storey_pct, low_density_pct, heritage_pct
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/lgas.json—140 LGA rows with same shape
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/sa2s.json—1,364 SA2 rows with same shape
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/headline-stats.json—pre-computed 5km + 20km cumulative shares for every metric × city
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/cities.json—CBD coordinates, bbox, analysis radius per city
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/restrictedExRural.json—the canonical "highly restricted" metric: the ex-rural four-control union (≤2-storey ∪ low-density ∪ detached-only ∪ heritage, rural-residential excluded), per-ring per-city
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/unionAllParcels.json—the same union over ALL parcels (rural included); kept for comparison, not the headline
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/restrictedExHeritage.json—the union but ex-heritage
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/ptProximity.json—share of restricted residential land within 800m of a transit stop, per city
- https://zoning.org.au/data/json/manifest.json—full catalogue of every dataset, its unit, and per-city availability

Polygons (per-parcel, all cities, all layers) live in a single PMTiles bundle:
https://pub-964849a4cc6d49aa8b7af2d9550683d7.r2.dev/polygons/polygons.pmtiles
Source-layer names within the bundle: <slug>-<layer>
where layer ∈ {union, le-2-storey, low-density, heritage, non-restricted}.

PT geometries (stops, 800m buffers, restricted-near-PT polygons) live
at https://zoning.org.au/data/pt/<slug>-<layer>.geojson.

## Methodology + glossary

- https://zoning.org.au/methodology—sources, ring binning, 20km vs GCCSA scope explanation
- https://zoning.org.au/methodology/glossary—every term, metric, and acronym defined, each linked to its pipeline source
- https://zoning.org.au/changelog—data snapshots, site changes, and the versioned dataset history (SemVer)

## Embed (for media use)

Every chart is iframeable. Routes:

- https://zoning.org.au/embed/cliff—8-city × 20-km heatmap
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/city-<slug>—single-city headline + reform impact
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/reform—national reform menu
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/counterfactual—8×8 swap matrix
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/rankings?metric=<id>—leaderboard for any metric
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/ring-cumulative?city=<slug>&metric=<id>
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/bar?city=<slug>&metric=<id>
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/stat?city=<slug>&metric=<id>
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/suburb-stat?code=<sal_code>
- https://zoning.org.au/embed/metric-history?show=<grid|moves|both>—how the metrics moved release to release

## License

All data: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0).
All code: see repository LICENSE files.
Attribution: cite as "Australian Zoning Atlas (snapshot 2026-07-23). zoning.org.au".