DCP (Development Control Plan)
A council's Development Control Plan — the detailed design rules that sit under the LEP: setbacks, landscaping ratios, solar access, privacy, car parking and stormwater. A DCP is guidance, not law, so it can't override an LEP or SEPP or make a prohibited use permissible, but its controls shape what you can actually fit on a block.
A Development Control Plan (DCP) is the detailed design rulebook a NSW council writes to sit underneath its Local Environmental Plan. Where the LEP sets the big legal controls — the zone, what you can build, height and floor space ratio — the DCP fills in the design detail the LEP doesn't cover: boundary setbacks, landscaping ratios, solar access, privacy, car parking, driveway widths and stormwater.
The distinction that trips people up is legal status. An LEP is law; a DCP is guidance. A council takes the DCP into account when it assesses a development application, but a DCP cannot override an LEP or a State Environmental Planning Policy, and it cannot make a prohibited use permissible. So the LEP tells you whether you can do something; the DCP tells you how it has to look if you do.
Why a DCP matters to a flip
A DCP rarely stops a deal outright, but its controls decide what you can physically fit — and that changes your end value. A setback or landscaping rule that shrinks a duplex footprint, or a parking requirement that eats a second bedroom, can quietly trim the after-repair value you were counting on. On a straight cosmetic renovation the DCP barely registers; on anything that adds a dwelling or reshapes the building envelope, it drives the feasibility.
Because a DCP is guidance, there's usually some room to argue a variation with a merit-based justification — unlike an LEP standard, which is far harder to move. The practical order is to read the LEP first to confirm your strategy is even legal, then work the DCP to see whether the numbers survive its design rules. A fuller walkthrough is in what LEP and DCP mean for a NSW flipper, and you can test what a block actually supports with a full deal analysis. General information only, not planning advice — LEP and DCP controls vary by council and change over time.