Granny flat rules by council —
Brisbane metro to the Gold Coast.

Three things about a Queensland granny flat are decided in Brisbane and apply identically in every council area. The first is the definition. Schedule 24 of the Planning Regulation 2017 defines a **secondary dwelling** as "a dwelling on a lot that is used in conjunction with, but subordinate to, another dwelling on the lot, whether or not the dwelling is attached to the other dwelling, or occupied by individuals who are related to, or associated with, the household of the other dwelling". A dwelling means a self-contained residence with food-preparation facilities, a bath or shower and a toilet. Two dwellings on one lot, one of them secondary, are still legally a single "dwelling house" — which is exactly why the secondary one cannot be subdivided or sold separately.

The second is occupancy. The Planning (Secondary Dwellings) Amendment Regulation 2022, notified on 23 September 2022 (most councils quote 26 September, the first business day), deleted the old requirement that the secondary dwelling be occupied by the same household as the main house. That is the whole reason a Queensland granny flat is now a rental product: it can be let to anyone, on a general tenancy agreement, in every local government area. Nothing in that amendment changed any council's size, siting or parking rules, and any scheme wording that still speaks of "one household" cannot narrow a definition set by the Regulation.

The third is the approval architecture. Schedule 6 of the Regulation makes a compliant dwelling house — including its secondary dwelling — accepted development in the low-density, low-medium-density and character residential zones, so a council cannot demand a development application for a granny flat that meets its own acceptable outcomes unless an overlay says otherwise. What every project needs regardless is a **building approval** (a Class 1a building, assessed by a private certifier or council) and a **plumbing and drainage permit** from council. Siting — how close to the boundary, how much of the lot may be roofed — comes from the Queensland Development Code (Mandatory Parts 1.1 for lots under 450 m² and 1.2 for lots of 450 m² and over) unless the scheme substitutes its own numbers.

**Brisbane City Council** (City Plan 2014, version 36, effective 12 June 2026). The Dwelling house code allows a secondary dwelling of up to **80 m² gross floor area, located within 20 m of the dwelling house** (Table 9.3.7.3.A, acceptable outcome AO1.2; the same outcome sits in the small-lot code that applies below 450 m²). Within those limits the granny flat is assessed as part of the dwelling house — accepted development, with a certifier doing the building approval. Brisbane's Infrastructure Charges Resolution (No. 15) 2026 contains no secondary-dwelling clause, and a council charge can only attach to a development approval, so an accepted-development granny flat normally attracts none. Two cautions: the "100 m² on rural land" figure that circulates was not found in the code, and **Major Amendment Package L** — consulted in November 2025 and expected to be adopted in mid-to-late 2026 — proposes to cap the secondary dwelling at the lesser of 80 m² or **10 % of the site area**, two bedrooms and 50 % total site cover. On a 400 m² lot that would mean 40 m². It was not adopted at 12 September 2026; if your lot is under 800 m², the timing of your approval matters.

**Logan City Council** (Logan Planning Scheme 2015, version 9.2). Up to **70 m²** in a residential zone on a lot under 1,000 m², **100 m²** otherwise; gross floor area excludes garages, carports, decks and patios. Logan's siting test is not a distance but a position: the unit sits beside, within or behind the primary dwelling — **never in front of it** — and shares a single crossover where the frontage is under 30 m. There is **no minimum lot size** and no minimum frontage. Logan is the one metro council that openly levies infrastructure charges on a secondary dwelling — at the dwelling-house rate under Charges Resolution (No. 12) 2025, in force since 1 September 2025 — so budget for it. Logan also keeps an older, separate "auxiliary unit" pathway (minimum 450 m² lot, up to two bedrooms) with its own rules.

**Ipswich City Council** (Ipswich City Plan 2025, effective 1 July 2025). A sliding scale by lot size — **60 m² on lots over 450 up to 600 m², 90 m² from 600 to 800 m², 120 m² above 800 m²** (Table 9.3.7.3.1) — with no limit on bedrooms, on who lives there, or on whether the property already has a house. Accepted development subject to requirements in the Residential and Rural zones; a development application in the Character Residential, Centres, Industry and Environment and Conservation zones. Because the table has no row below 450 m², a smaller lot is not accepted development and needs code assessment. Ipswich charges **no infrastructure charges** for a secondary dwelling, requires a separate three-bin waste area per dwelling, and will not allocate a separate street number.

**City of Moreton Bay** (MBRC Planning Scheme 2016, version 7 — the Better Housing Amendment of 30 October 2024). The most prescriptive of the five. The secondary dwelling may be **45 m² on lots of 450 to 800 m², or 55 m² on lots over 800 m²** (RAD21); it must not sit in front of the primary dwelling and, if freestanding, must be **within 10 m** of it (RAD22); the lot must be at least **450 m² with a 10 m frontage**, or 600 m² and 12.5 m in the Suburban neighbourhood and Coastal communities precincts (RAD18); one extra car space (RAD20); and — the rule most owners miss — the unit must **share a single water connection and meter and a single electricity connection and meter** with the main house (RAD19). Non-compliance with any of these does not trigger a full development application; council acts as a concurrence agency on the building application instead. Site cover in the affected precincts is 60 %.

**Redland City Council** (Redland City Plan, version 14). Redland is the outlier: its planning scheme contains **no gross-floor-area cap** for a secondary dwelling. Size is managed through the council's Amenity and Aesthetics Policy and Guideline (in force since 1 February 2024), whose "probable solutions" are **85 m² on lots under 1,000 m², 112 m² on larger lots and 160 m² on rural lots of 6,000 m² or more**; a bigger design is referred to council and levied — 30 % of the dwelling-house charge between 85 and 112 m², 50 % above, under the Adopted Infrastructure Charges Resolution (No. 3.2) 2023. Below those sizes there is no council charge and, on many lots, only building and plumbing approval. The 2023 secondary-dwelling amendment was withdrawn in October 2025 and folded into Major Amendment 02/25, which council resolved on 15 July 2026 to send to the Planning Minister; it was not in effect at 12 September 2026.

**Sunshine Coast Council** (Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme 2014, amended to No. 27, 23 January 2024). Up to **60 m²** (90 m² in the Rural and Rural residential zones; 45 m² and no more than 4 m high in the Moffat Beach, Shelly Beach and Dicky Beach area); a freestanding unit within **20 m** of the primary dwelling; in an urban zone the lot must be a **regular-shaped lot of at least 600 m²** — the one genuine urban minimum among these councils. The unit shares the water connection and meter, the wastewater connection, the street number and the driveway, and needs one extra car space. A new planning scheme is in preparation (consultation closed 19 September 2025; the State has asked council to drop the minimum lot size for secondary dwellings) but is not in force.

**Noosa Shire Council** (Noosa Plan 2020, amendment 3, 20 March 2026). One or two bedrooms and a maximum of **65 m²** gross floor area, with height, setbacks and site cover taken from the zone code; one per lot regardless of size; rentable to unrelated tenants but **not** for short-term accommodation; one extra car space. When compliant it is certifier-assessed without any referral to council. From 1 July 2025 Noosa levies **no infrastructure charges** on a secondary dwelling.

**Scenic Rim Regional Council** (Scenic Rim Planning Scheme 2020, version of 30 June 2023). Up to **60 m²**, within **20 m** of the outermost projection of the primary dwelling, one extra car space, and connected to the same water and electricity supply as the main house. The scheme carries its own setback table: in the residential and township zones 6 m to the street, 3 m to the secondary frontage of a corner lot, and 1.5 m to side and rear boundaries for walls up to 4.5 m (2 m up to 7.5 m); in the Limited development and Rural residential zones 10 m to the street and 3 m (or 5 m) to the sides. The charges resolution (version 16, August 2025) applies a discounted charge to secondary dwellings.

**Somerset Regional Council** (Somerset Region Planning Scheme version 5.0, commenced 4 June 2026). Outside the Rural zone, **60 m² on lots under 2,000 m² and 90 m² on larger lots**; in the Rural zone 60, 90 or 120 m² by lot size (under 2,000 m², up to 5 ha, over 5 ha); the unit sits no closer to the street than the main house, has at least one covered car space, and in the Rural zone keeps 15 m from side and rear boundaries. The amendment text also carries a 800 m² minimum lot outcome and an old "relative of the principal household" outcome — the second cannot override the state definition, and both should be confirmed against the adopted version at your assessment.

**Lockyer Valley Regional Council** (Lockyer Valley Planning Scheme with the 2024 flood TLPI, effect 22 July 2024). **70 m²** in a residential zone or the Township zone, **100 m²** elsewhere, no more than two bedrooms, within 20 m of the primary dwelling in the Rural and Rural residential zones, sharing all service connections, the driveway and the private open space; a dwelling house with a secondary dwelling needs three on-site car spaces. A lot under the flood hazard overlay (the TLPI) needs a material change of use application.

Schedule 6 of the Regulation keeps a compliant granny flat as accepted development only where "no relevant overlay applies" or the overlay does not make the use assessable — so overlays are where the accepted-development fast lane ends. Brisbane's flood overlays (river, creek and overland-flow), its Traditional building character overlay (pre-1946 houses), heritage places, landslide, airport environs and transport noise corridors; Gold Coast's flood, coastal erosion, bushfire and landslide overlays; Moreton Bay's storm-tide, bushfire and building-height overlays; Redland's flood-and-storm-tide, koala habitat and coastal protection overlays; Lockyer Valley's flood TLPI — each either attaches its own code requirements (floor levels, bushfire attack level construction, colours and materials) or moves the project to a development application.

Two practical points. First, an overlay is almost never a prohibition: it changes the approval pathway and often the construction specification, not whether a unit can exist. Second, Queensland council overlay maps are not published in a form a browser can read live, which is why our planner shows the state-level hazard layers it can reach (acid-sulfate-soil trigger areas, the Queensland heritage register, erosion-prone areas) and says plainly that council overlays are confirmed at the site assessment rather than pretending to have checked them.

When the granny flat is a self-contained unit and the tenant has no access to the main house, the Residential Tenancies Authority's position is that a **general tenancy agreement** (Form 18a) applies; if the tenant shares the kitchen or other facilities with the household, it becomes **rooming accommodation** (Form R18) with a different set of rules. Bond, entry condition reports and the minimum housing standards apply in full from the first day.

Bills are governed by sections 164 to 166A of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008, and the two utilities are treated differently. **Water** can be passed to the tenant only if three things are all true: the premises are **individually metered** (a supply-authority meter measuring that dwelling alone), the premises are **water efficient** (WELS 3-star taps and showerheads, dual-flush toilets, no leaks), and the agreement says the tenant pays. Fail any one and the tenant pays nothing for water — there is no lawful "reasonable share" of a shared water meter, and the fixed service charge can never be passed on. **Electricity and gas** are looser: if the dwelling is not individually metered, the tenant can be required to pay an apportioned amount **only if the agreement states the service, how the apportionment is worked out and how it is recovered**; on a separate meter the tenant pays the supplier's charge and nothing more. In both cases the owner must give the tenant a copy of the supplier's bill within four weeks or lose the right to recover it.

Put the two sections together and the design decision becomes clear. A separately metered granny flat (its own NMI, its own water meter where the utility allows one) is the only configuration in which a Queensland tenant pays their own consumption in the ordinary way. A shared-meter unit — which Moreton Bay, Sunshine Coast, Scenic Rim and Lockyer Valley require — can still recover electricity on a written apportionment clause but cannot recover water at all, so the rent has to carry it.

Start with the map planner: it draws your lot from the state cadastre, keeps the unit 1.5 m off every boundary and 1 m off every easement, places a 30 m² and a 60 m² unit behind the house, and applies your council's cap from the table above. Then book the free site assessment. We pull the title, check the council overlays and the utility's sewer plan, confirm which pathway the lot is on — accepted development with a certifier, or a development application first — and put the pathway, the meter arrangement and the timing in writing before any contract. On an accepted-development lot the approval stack runs at certifier speed; on an overlay-affected or rural lot the development approval comes first and the timing is confirmed in writing after the assessment. See the Queensland rules guide for the tenancy-law chapters and the Brisbane and Gold Coast pages for our builds there.