Ku-ring-gai Council
Private building certifier in Turramurra
Turramurra pairs a busy town centre with leafy, long settled streets. We help owners check heritage status and station distance before planning an upper floor, pool, granny flat or dual occupancy.
NSW 2074
Class 1 homes and Class 10 structures
Local rules
How Turramurra's streets are controlled
Who lives here
In 2021, 12,850 people lived in Turramurra, in 4,888 private dwellings. Stand-alone houses were about 68.1% of occupied homes. Apartments were 27.2%, most of them close by the town centre. Semis, terraces and townhouses were just 4.6%. Ku-ring-gai Local Environmental Plan 2015 is the local planning instrument.
Two heritage groupings
Council groups its conservation areas under a Turramurra heading and a shared Warrawee and Turramurra heading. Both took legal effect in July 2013. These areas protect whole streets rather than single buildings. Fences, trees, gardens and building style all count. Council has put the inventories back online through the state's heritage inventory, complete with history, maps and photos from 2024.
Station distance, not suburb lines
None of Ku-ring-gai's four precincts for housing near transport cover Turramurra. Since February 2025, though, state rules for low and medium scale homes have covered land within an 800 metre walk of Ku-ring-gai stations. They allow terraces, townhouses and small apartment blocks. Excluded are TOD sites, bushfire prone land and heritage items. Because the distance follows a walking route, two houses equally far from the station in a straight line can be treated differently.
Typical work
Common projects and how they get approved
What owners build here
Owners in Turramurra, both in heritage streets and elsewhere, usually come to us with:
- Upper-floor and rear additions. In a heritage area, rooflines and the street view are assessed.
- Garages, carports and decks. Check heritage and bushfire mapping first.
- Pools and granny flats. Lot size and trees often set the limits.
- Dual occupancy. Council's development control plan gained new rules for these in March 2026. In June 2026 their floor space ratio was capped at 0.5 to 1.
Unit work by the centre is Class 2, which a Class 2 registered certifier must handle.
How approval usually works
A CDC, the quicker approval a certifier can issue, is possible when the design satisfies each code standard. Ku-ring-gai sets 1,015 square metres as the smallest lot for a dual occupancy CDC. An October 2025 gazettal set that figure. The council DCP gained new dual occupancy controls on 5 March 2026. Since 5 June 2026, dual occupancies have had a floor space cap, set at 0.5 to 1. Older feasibility studies may rely on rules that have since changed. Where a CDC cannot be used, you lodge a DA with council and follow it with a construction certificate. Where a proposal falls short of a code standard, council can still weigh it on merit. Send your planning certificate, survey and any concept sketches first. CertifiBuild then stays with the job from pathway advice to final sign off, with one point of contact for builders and owners alike.
Our services
From approval to sign-off.
One certifier for your whole Turramurra job, from the first plan check to the occupation certificate.
Local questions
Questions we hear about this suburb.
No two lots in Turramurra are the same. Give us your address and we will check every map that affects it.
See the council pageCan I build a dual occupancy on my Turramurra block?
Possibly. Dual occupancies are permitted on Turramurra’s R2 land, except where the lot is bushfire prone, holds a heritage item or lies within a Transport Oriented Development (TOD) precinct. For the faster complying development certificate (CDC) route, Ku-ring-gai wants a block of 1,015 square metres or more, a rule gazetted in October 2025. Council then added fresh dual occupancy controls to its development control plan in March 2026, and since June 2026 floor space has been capped at 0.5 to 1. Any feasibility work done before these changes may be out of date, so recheck it against today’s rules.
Can my Turramurra home in a heritage area still go up a level?
Often, yes, but it usually goes through a development application (DA) with council rather than a complying development certificate (CDC). Turramurra’s conservation areas, in force since July 2013, protect whole streetscapes, so the addition is judged on how it reads from the street, its roof shape and how it sits among established trees and gardens. Fences and building style count too. If your home is itself a heritage item, some code pathways are lost entirely, so confirm its status first. Council has put each area’s inventory online, including its history, maps and recent photos, so read it before design.
Are the TOD changes relevant to my Turramurra home?
Not directly. Turramurra was left out when four nearby Ku-ring-gai centres were picked for Transport Oriented Development (TOD) rezoning. What matters more here are the state rules for low and medium scale housing, in force since February 2025. They allow terraces, townhouses and small apartment blocks within an 800 metre walk of Ku-ring-gai stations, excluding bushfire prone land and heritage items. Since distance is counted along the walking route, two houses equally far from the station as the crow flies may be treated quite differently. Have that walk measured from your gate before plans are drawn.
Building in this suburb?
Send us the address first.
We check the local maps for your lot, confirm the approval path and quote in writing.