Fencing in Belgrave Heights
In Belgrave Heights the ranges overlay applies to side and back fences too, so a solid boundary fence between neighbours is a planning permit application on most blocks.
We connect you with a local fencer who works in the hills.
Ask for a quoteDandenong Ranges. Photo: Nick Carson, CC BY 3.0
A side fence can need a planning permit here
Belgrave Heights is under the ranges landscape overlay, SLO1, almost everywhere, and SLO1's rule reaches past the front yard. Any fence needs a planning permit unless it is under 1.8 m and more than 75% see-through. A standard paling or sheet-steel fence between two houses fails the second test, so it goes to Yarra Ranges as an application. Open wire, or widely spaced slats, can pass.
A good share of the suburb is also under ESO1, which has a fence provision of its own with unclear wording. On a block with both, ask Yarra Ranges planning which applies before ordering materials. Near the Belgrave and Tecoma edges a block can fall under the township schedule, SLO22, which only governs front fences.
A free VicPlan property report lists the overlays on your block. Fence permits covers the building rules on top.
Checked 25 October 2026 against Vicmap Planning, the state's zone and overlay maps (DataVic), measured across the suburb, Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedules to Clause 42.03 (SLO1–6, SLO22, SLO23), Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedules to Clause 42.01 (ESO1, ESO2) and Yarra Ranges Council: building a fence.
Fences along Birdsland and the creek
Close to a third of Belgrave Heights is park or conservation land. The largest piece is Birdsland, a 75-hectare bushland park on what was once the Bird family's farm. The former Shire of Sherbrooke bought it for public use in 1982. Melbourne Water manages the reserve's waterways, and Monbulk Creek is part of a biolink corridor between Dandenong Ranges National Park and Lysterfield Lake Park.
The Fences Act gives you no one to split the bill with along a reserve: the Crown doesn't contribute, and a council holding land as a public park isn't counted as an owner. Melbourne Water does offer stream frontage grants that can go toward fencing and weed work, so ask them whether a creek boundary qualifies.
About one twentieth of the suburb is in the Land Subject to Inundation Overlay, the flood overlay. There, any fence needs a planning permit, because the overlay counts fences as buildings and works.
Checked 25 October 2026 against Wikipedia: Belgrave Heights, Vicmap Planning, the state's zone and overlay maps (DataVic), measured across the suburb, Fences Act 1968 (Vic), authorised version 072 and Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 44.04 (Land Subject to Inundation Overlay).
After 1983 and 2009
Ash Wednesday burned through the area in 1983, and a fire swept the Birdsland area in February 2009. The Bushfire Management Overlay covers the whole suburb. Beside a boundary fence built before 10 September 2009 you may clear 4 m, both sides together, without a planning permit. CFA's garden advice favours non-combustible fences near the house; that is advice, not a rule. Clearing a fence line has the detail.
Checked 25 October 2026 against Wikipedia: Belgrave Heights, Vicmap Planning, the state's zone and overlay maps (DataVic), measured across the suburb, Victoria Planning Provisions, Clause 52.12 (bushfire protection exemptions) and CFA: designing a fire-resistant garden.
Next door, by overlay
- Belgrave South and Selby
- SLO1 again, with the same test for every fence.
Checked 25 October 2026 against Yarra Ranges Planning Scheme, Schedules to Clause 42.03 (SLO1–6, SLO22, SLO23).
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