01The local market
Greater Brisbane has enough variation in housing and tenure to make property authority and structure type essential form questions. The 2021 Census recorded 912,040 occupied private dwellings: 73.4% were separate houses, 11.4% were semi-detached, row or terrace houses or townhouses, and 14.7% were flats or apartments. It also recorded 35.1% of occupied private dwellings as rented.
Those figures do not prove demolition demand, but they explain why an enquiry path should distinguish an owner or authorised representative from a tenant, body corporate contact, builder or person still researching a property. The campaign should also ask whether the scope is an entire detached dwelling, attached or shared structure, internal strip-out, pool, shed, garage or commercial site. Logan, Ipswich, Redlands and Moreton Bay are separate local-government areas, not suburbs governed by Brisbane City Council.
They can be useful service-zone qualifiers where a contractor genuinely works, but their approval, road and public-space processes must be checked with the responsible council rather than copied from the Brisbane municipality. Within Brisbane, approval is not a single yes-or-no question. Council says building approval may be needed before demolition and directs owners to a licensed building certifier.
Planning, plumbing and footpath approvals can be separate. Planning approval can be triggered by matters including the Queensland Heritage Register, a local heritage place, the pre-1911 building overlay, qualifying pre-1946 buildings in the traditional building character overlay, commercial character buildings, rooming accommodation, relevant neighbourhood plans and principal or major centre zoning.
Council also lists limited exceptions, including some post-1946 outbuildings and minor work, but those conditions should be checked against the live property and City Plan rather than shortened into a blanket “no council approval” ad.
Pool work needs its own route as well: Brisbane City Council says filling, demolishing or decommissioning a pool is building work that requires approval from a private certifier, with the compliant barrier retained until the certifier confirms completion. State heritage is another distinct check. Queensland Government guidance separates general exemptions, exemption certificates and development applications; work with more than a minor detrimental impact on a State Heritage Place can require a development application under the Planning Act.
02The campaign setup
A form can ask what a certifier, council or heritage adviser has already identified, but a postcode, image or customer answer cannot establish the approval pathway. The demolition method then changes the safety hand-off. Workplace Health and Safety Queensland says a PCBU carrying out demolition work must hold a demolition work licence and have the nominated competent person present or readily available.
Its current demolition guidance requires at least five days’ notice for specified work, including demolition of a load-bearing or integrity-related structure at least six metres high, work involving load-shifting machinery on a suspended floor, or explosives.
Demolition of a load-bearing or integrity-related element is high-risk construction work and requires a safe work method statement. The Demolition work Code of Practice also covers essential services, public safety, adjoining buildings, temporary support, structural information, plant, hazardous materials and demolition sequencing.
A partial removal beside retained walls or a neighbouring building therefore needs a different assessment from a clear detached shed; “careful demolition” is not a substitute for the engineering information, temporary support or exclusion controls a project requires.
Asbestos should be a separate qualification and operations path, not a checkbox bundled into every demolition promise. WorkSafe Queensland says more than 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos must be removed by a business with a current class A or B asbestos-removal licence, while friable asbestos requires a class A licence.
Licensed asbestos removal and certain demolition work must be notified before work starts, and asbestos waste must be contained, labelled and taken to an authorised site. The transport permission is separate from the removal licence. Queensland asbestos guidance says commercial operators transporting any quantity of asbestos waste must complete waste-tracking documentation; an environmental authority is required when transporting more than 175 kilograms.
03Claims and hand-off
Those thresholds do not let an ad diagnose a material from a photo or promise that every demolition contractor can remove, transport and clear every asbestos type. Access and neighbourhood impact also belong in the lead brief. Brisbane City Council requires approval for activities such as depositing equipment or materials on a footpath, driving over a kerb where there is no driveway, temporary site fencing, footway excavation and some hoarding or gantry use.
Work affecting a footpath, parking lane or traffic lane can require a temporary lane or road-closure assessment, and a construction works zone is used for defined kerbside loading and unloading.
Council’s building-work noise rules include demolition and generally prohibit clearly audible building work inside an affected building from 6.30pm to 6.30am Monday to Saturday and at any time on Sunday or a public holiday, unless an applicable approval authorises otherwise. The campaign should collect frontage, footpath, road, plant, skip and preferred timing information without promising an exact start window.
Finally, quote and environmental claims need a documented scope. The customer should know whether the price includes service disconnection, certifier or planning coordination, asbestos work, sorting, salvage, tipping, waste tracking, pool backfill, compaction, imported fill, erosion controls or a final clearance.
ACCC guidance requires advertising claims to be accurate, truthful and based on reasonable grounds. “All approvals included”, “asbestos-free”, “100% recycled”, “fixed price for every house” or “site ready for the builder” should appear only when the contractor can define and substantiate the relevant inclusions for that project.