Victorian Planning Reports provide three core services:

  • The Guide to Planning Appeals (GPAs)
  • The Guide to Planning Panels (GPPs)
  • Editorials on noteworthy Tribunal decisions (VCAT volumes) and Panel reports (PPV volumes).

Both the GPAs and GPPs are available to subscribers on-line. They are updated annually and released each July.

The VCAT and PPV editorials are published usually on a monthly basis. Volume series have been created for each year (from July to June). The new volume number will be ‘8’ from July 2020.

Previous volumes of editorials are found on the web site under Past editorials. They are ordered in volume number and edition number order.

The contents of both the GPAs and GPPs have been developed from identifying key issues in Tribunal decisions and Panel reports and are largely set out in alphabetical order. To find a key issue, click the letter tab and the key issues under that letter will be displayed. If you then click on the issue, any sub-key issues will then be displayed.

A useful feature of the VPRs web site is the key word search word function. Simply key in the key word or words and the web site will display all references where that word has been used. The web site contains approximately a million words so it may take a few minutes for the references to display.

Hints on key word search

  • Entering ‘this’ and ‘that’ will return results containing both ‘this’ and ‘that’
  • Entering ‘this’ not ‘that’ will return results containing ‘this’ and not ‘that’
  • Entering ‘this’ or ‘that’ will return results containing either ‘this’ or ‘that’
  • Entering ‘this and that’ (with quotes) will return results containing the exact phrase ‘this and that’

For example, a search of three different phases might be:

  • Amenity or morality or brothel

Key words without any of the ‘and’, ‘not’, ‘or’ will be considered to be required in the same article. So entering ‘amenity, morality and brothel’ will try and match all entries in the same article/category.

Access to Planning Appeals Board Reports (PABR) Vols 1 to 5 and Administrative Appeals Tribunal Reports Vols 1 to 22 (AATR) and Victorian Planning Reports Vols 1 to 47 are available on www.austlii.edu.au. Cases and editorials are in pdf format.