Fences on flood-prone land in Maitland

Published 28 October 2026

Is your Maitland lot a flood control lot?

A flood control lot is one where flood-related development controls apply to building a house; the section 10.7 planning certificate for the lot says whether it's one. Maitland's fences page puts it simply: most boundary fences can be built without approval "provided the lot is not identified as subject to flood controls, or heritage restrictions".

Maitland's flood mapping is changing. Council's draft flood study update, open for comment from 26 October to 23 November 2026, "has found significant changes in forecasted flood behaviour and flood mapping", with new DCP flood controls planned for late 2027. Use your current planning certificate, not an old map.

Building a fence on a flood control lot

• Residential zones (most suburbs): not exempt (Codes SEPP cl 2.33(c)). A complying development certificate is possible only on a part of the lot certified as outside the floodway, flood storage, flow path and high-hazard areas, and the fence must be designed not to restrict floodwater (cl 3.5, 3.29); otherwise a development application.
• Rural and large lots (including R5): a post and wire or post and rail fence up to 1.8 m can be exempt, as long as it doesn't "redirect or interrupt the flow of surface or ground water" (cl 2.36(1)(i)).
• Pool barriers: exempt in residential zones if they meet the Swimming Pools Act (cl 2.34A–2.34B); that clause has no flood control lot exclusion.

Which fences suit Maitland's floodplain

Maitland's DCP for the Hunter River floodplain (the December 2011 text, still part of DCP 2026) says "New development shall be designed to avoid fences in floodways", and where dividing fences across floodways are unavoidable they must be "open type fencing that does not restrict the flow of flood waters", "resistant to blockage or designed to be collapsible under heavy flood loadings". Applications below the flood planning level have to show how debris build-up against fences is reduced.

In practice that points to post and wire, post and rail or open mesh across flood paths, rather than solid Colorbond or lapped timber that holds water and debris back.

Flood fencing rules in Maitland's new estates

Maitland DCP 2026, Chapter 10 adds controls for the urban release areas, which apply when a fence is part of a development needing consent:

• Gillieston Heights: "Any fencing of allotments in flood prone areas is to be designed so as not to restrict or divert flood waters."
• Thornton North and Chisholm: fencing of rural and flood-fringe allotments "to be of post and wire style (or similar)".
• Louth Park: allotment boundary fencing "of timber post and rail style, or similar open style rural fencing".

Repairing a fence after a flood

For emergency help in a flood or storm, call the NSW SES on 132 500 (000 if life is in danger). Once the water's gone, the Codes SEPP allows repairs after a natural disaster as exempt development if the fence is the same size, in the same place and of similar materials, within 2 years (cl 2.30AA–2.30AB); a different or bigger fence on a flood control lot needs approval.

Between neighbours, restoring a dividing fence after a flood is ordinary fencing work under the Dividing Fences Act, shared equally after a fencing notice, or done as urgent work and half recovered if a notice isn't practicable (s 9). See fence repairs.

Questions about fences on flood-prone land