01The local market
Greater Melbourne has a mixed built environment that should change both the message and the form. The 2021 Census recorded 1,781,346 occupied private dwellings: 67.8% were separate houses, 16.2% were semi-detached, row or terrace houses or townhouses, and 15.6% were flats or apartments. It also recorded 30.2% of occupied private dwellings as rented.
Those figures do not establish demolition demand, but they show why a campaign should distinguish owners and authorised decision-makers, free-standing structures, shared or retained elements, tenants, owners corporations and commercial occupants.
Dandenong, Werribee, Epping and Ringwood sit in different council areas from the City of Melbourne. They are useful service-zone prompts only; the contractor should set the live map around actual crews and check the responsible council for each property rather than applying a central-city permit rule across the metropolitan area.
Victoria also separates the building-permit, planning and heritage questions. The Building and Plumbing Commission practice note says the relevant building surveyor must determine whether a demolition building-permit application needs report and consent from the responsible authority.
Under the section 29A tests described in that note, report and consent is required where proposed and recent permitted demolition together exceed half the building’s volume over the defined three-year period, or where any part of a street-facing facade that is at least partly visible from that street is demolished.
02The campaign setup
A planning permit may still be required, including through a Heritage Overlay, and the building process cannot be used to bypass it. Heritage Victoria separately says demolition or relocation of buildings and structures on a state-listed heritage place generally needs approval unless a relevant exemption applies. An ad can ask whether the owner, council, building surveyor or heritage adviser has identified a pathway; it cannot declare a project permit-free from a postcode or photo.
The work scope also changes safety qualification. WorkSafe Victoria classifies demolition as high-risk construction work, so a safe work method statement must be prepared before the work starts and the work must follow it. Its demolition guidance covers planning, essential services, adjoining buildings, manual and mechanical methods, plant, special structures and engineering investigation.
Recent WorkSafe guidance on structural collapse also recommends a competent assessment, a documented method and sequence, temporary supports where required and exclusion zones. A partial demolition around a retained wall, roof, floor or neighbouring building therefore needs a different follow-up from a clear detached structure; “careful strip-out” is not a substitute for the engineering and work controls that apply. Asbestos should be separated from the general quote path.
WorkSafe says the person performing demolition or refurbishment must identify asbestos likely to be disturbed, using the register where available or making a determination before work where it is not.
03Claims and hand-off
At domestic premises, the employer or self-employed contractor has corresponding identification duties, and asbestos that may be disturbed by demolition must, so far as reasonably practicable, be removed before demolition begins. Victorian asbestos guidance also warns that homes built before 1990 may contain asbestos and that visual inspection alone cannot confirm a material.
The campaign can collect the building age and whether a report exists, but it should not diagnose uploaded photos or imply that every demolition credential includes every asbestos class. Access becomes another Melbourne-specific qualification layer. The City of Melbourne Code of Practice applies to works affecting public space within that municipality and covers construction management plans, road activities, hoardings, gantries, scaffolds, mobile plant, skips, traffic management, barricades and municipal assets.
Those requirements do not automatically govern neighbouring councils, but they show why inner-city and constrained sites need frontage, footpath, road, laneway and public-protection questions before a start date or bin placement is offered. Finally, waste wording must follow the actual stream and destination. EPA Victoria says the general environmental duty applies to construction and demolition waste, and household clients remain responsible for ensuring their contractor takes waste to a place authorised to accept it.
Industrial asbestos waste has additional transport, Waste Tracker and lawful-place requirements. A campaign should therefore promise only the sorting, salvage, recycling, transport, tipping records, asbestos handling, backfill and final site condition that the contractor can document for that project. “Everything included”, “EPA approved”, a universal recycling percentage or a fixed clean-site result should not appear before those inclusions are verified.