Vicmap Planning History is the map data representing the land use zone and overlay controls for all Victorian planning schemes. Planning schemes cover the 79 local government areas and three other areas in Victoria. Planning schemes are regularly amended, and Vicmap Planning is continually updated to reflect the official planning scheme at any time. 

Datasets in the series are listed below.  See them for more detailed metadata.
- Planning scheme zones - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_ZONE_HISTORY);
- Planning scheme overlay - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_OVERLAY_HISTORY);
- Planning scheme codelist - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_CODELIST)
Current data model is Version 3.0.1 (Draft) 15 July 2017.

Vicmap Planning History is the map data representing the land use zone and overlay controls for all Victorian planning schemes. Planning schemes cover the 79 local government areas and three other areas in Victoria. Planning schemes are regularly amended, and Vicmap Planning is continually updated to reflect the official planning scheme at any time. 

Datasets in the series are listed below.  See them for more detailed metadata.
- Planning scheme zones - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_ZONE_HISTORY);
- Planning scheme overlay - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_OVERLAY_HISTORY);
- Planning scheme codelist - Vicmap Planning (VMPLAN_PLAN_CODELIST)
Current data model is Version 3.0.1 (Draft) 15 July 2017.

Ideally, it is recommended that Vicmap Planning History is to be used in conjunction with Vicmap Property, as zone boundaries generally align to property boundaries.

Areas of application may include:
· Town Planning/Strategic Planning
· Real Estate management
· Property Developers
· Infrastructure/facilities location and management
· Reference framework
· Research systems
· Valuations analysis

Vicmap Planning is directly aligned to a control version of Vicmap Property 75%-80% of the time, and the remainder (20%-25%) is aligned to natural features such as waterways, vegetation patterns or land contours.

Zone and overlay boundaries are generally aligned node-for-node to the Vicmap Property cadastral data. Additionally, the zoning polygons (and where appropriate the overlay polygons) must be node-for-node aligned to neighbouring zoning polygons.

Therefore, the positional accuracy of this data is as accurate as Vicmap Property. (Note that the version of Vicmap Property to which it is aligned is not necessarily the latest version, which can lead to inconsistencies when viewing the two datasets together.) As stated in the product description for Vicmap Property, this dataset "is classified as 'BB' accuracy, ie. 90% of well-defined features are within 1mm, at plot scale, of their true position, eg. 1:500 equates to +/- 0.5metre and 1:25,000 equates to +/- 25 metres. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the spatial accuracy of the major part of the data set, at all scales is frequently better than BB.

The following topology rules are adhered to in Vicmap Planning: 
· no gaps exist between polygons (ie. no slivers);
· a polygon does not overlap another polygon (no overlaps); 
· whole polygons are not duplicated (no duplicates).

Vicmap Planning is a seamless data set covering the whole state, however some slivers exist between the different planning schemes, due to the original digitising being done against different boundaries. 

There are also a small number of polygons missing from the final data set. When the data has been processed to convert it from the planning scheme map data to Vicmap Planning, some of the polygons have not formed properly due to topological problems. The "unformed_polygon" layer displays these polygons as lines so users are aware of where the problems exist.

The allowable error in attribute accuracy is consistent across the entire data set and would be as little as 1 to 2%. This is checked each time the data is posted back to production and  involves checking for:
· a valid Zone Number;
· a valid Zone Code;
· a valid Zone Status;
· a valid date;
· correct colour.

If any attribute fails to match, it is sent back for correction.

Planning scheme map data is required to conform to a defined level of consistency with respect to table structure and attributes. Planning scheme map data is currently stored on the basis of local government areas, (with the exception of Alpine Resorts, French Island and Port of Melbourne Planning Schemes), and the total Victoria-wide data set must be contained in a consistent map projection.

Before data is transferred to DSE production environment the data is quality assured according to a predefined set of rules for logical and attribute consistency.  This involves checking for:
· the correct table structure;
· occurrence of non-polygon objects;
· records without graphical objects;
· duplicate polygons;
· polygons within the zoning tables do not overlap;
· all polygon boundaries close;
· the file name is consistent with naming conventions;
· the correct coordinate system;
· a valid combination of zone code and zone number;
· no control/overlay data is in the zoning table;
· no zoning data is in the control/overlay table.

Customer feedback and error reports are also encouraged to improve the quality of the data.

Dataset Source: The Metropolitan scheme maintenance began in 1955 with the production of the 1954 Interim Development Order.  It was maintained continuously within the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, (MMBW), Planning Branch until 1985 when the MMBW Planning Branch became part of a new Planning and Environment Department and the maintenance has continued within State Government to the present.  During this time the name/s of the data changed from the Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme to the individual Municipal names (pre Local Government amalgamation), to the new (now current), Municipal names. 

Metropolitan planning scheme digital data capture began in the late 80's/early 90's and was captured by Ministry of Planning and Environment (MPE) staff matching zone boundary nodes to Vicmap Property nodes. This was done in Eagle GIS. Where zone boundaries deviated from Vicmap Property, MPE used the Department's hard copy zone boundary definition information contained in 1:2500 cadastral plans or existing definition plans which had been produced at various times and various scales since 1955. All these plans contained dimension information that was used to align zone boundaries in relation to Vicmap Property.

The history of the rural/regional data is quite different and also not so centralised. Information is derived from 3 different sources.
· Planning schemes maintained by the Town and Country Planning Board;
· Planning schemes maintained by Local Government where they had the resources to perform this function;
· Some schemes were a mix of both because the minister had the power in those days to create schemes within Local Government areas.  (An example of this was the Lake Eppalock Planning Scheme that bordered 3 municipalities.)

All of these rural/regional and metropolitan schemes were consolidated in the mid 80's into individual single municipal schemes with the exception of three schemes that are not Local Government boundary based - French Island, Alpine Resorts and Port of Melbourne Planning Schemes. 

The rural/regional planning scheme digital data was captured by external contractors matching zone boundary nodes to Vicmap Property nodes. Where zone boundaries deviated from Vicmap Property then the relevant local Government authority was consulted for zone boundary definition information. 

Data was realigned to a more current version of Vicmap Property as part of DOI's change from Eagle GIS to MapInfo in 1999/2000. Updates of the DOI corporate copy of Vicmap Property involves realignment of planning scheme data where new or altered cadastral boundaries coincide with zoning boundaries.

Recent governmental changes have seen the Planning Area within DOI transferred to the Built Environment division within the Department of Sustainability and Environment. Online Initiatives, within the Built Environment, maintain the planning scheme data in Mapinfo format (as individual files for each zone/overlay in each local government area). 







Dataset Originality: Primary

                            
                              Relationship to other Datasets: Vicmap Planning is related to other VGIS framework information, including Vicmap Property, Transport, Address, etc.

Current Design Issues: As part of Spatial Information Infrastructure's spatial data framework strategy, work will continue to bring Vicmap Planning more closely into alignment with current versions of Vicmap Property, particularly in terms of vertical topology. Currently this is only being carried out for the metropolitan area of Victoria.

Future Design Issues: It is anticipated that a new attribute be added to the data, being a unique feature identifier, or similar. This will enable features to be identified individually. A definite timeframe has not been put on this development.


Related Documents: None

Please see Vicmap Planning product description for more detailed information on this product. 
This can be found on the Vicmap Planning webpage.
https://www.land.vic.gov.au/maps-and-spatial/spatial-data/vicmap-catalogue