Show Cause Notice from Brisbane City Council? What To Do Next

A show cause notice, enforcement notice or compliance notice from Brisbane City Council about tree removal, vegetation clearing or earthworks is council setting out what it believes happened and, depending on the notice, either inviting your written response or requiring specific action by a stated date. It is not a conviction. The date on the notice matters most, because your right to respond runs out when it does. Envirosphere is an ecological consultancy that prepares the written response and the replanting plan or rehabilitation management plan that councils in South East Queensland usually ask for, and deals with Brisbane City Council for you.

What does a show cause or enforcement notice from Brisbane City Council mean?

Brisbane protects vegetation under two separate laws, and the heading on your letter tells you which one is in play. Look on the first page for the words Natural Assets Local Law 2003 or Planning Act 2016.

A compliance notice under the Natural Assets Local Law 2003 (the NALL) is Brisbane’s own local law at work. It protects significant native vegetation, significant urban vegetation (including significant landscape trees), waterway and wetland vegetation, and anything under a Vegetation Protection Order. Protection covers the root zone too, so filling or excavating around a protected tree counts as interference. The notice can require you to stop and to take specified action by a stated date, which can include replanting, and you can apply in writing within 14 days of the date of the notice for council to review the requirements.

A show cause notice or enforcement notice under the Planning Act 2016 is used where the clearing or earthworks needed a development approval under Brisbane City Plan 2014. A show cause notice sets out what council believes happened and gives you at least 20 business days to make written representations. An enforcement notice can require you to stop, to restore the land as far as practicable, or to apply for a development permit. For vegetation clearing the Act lets council skip the show cause step, so your first letter may already be an enforcement notice. The full Queensland process is on our general show cause notice page.

What does Brisbane City Council usually ask for in a show cause or enforcement notice about vegetation clearing or earthworks?

Read your notice closely, because the notice sometimes says exactly what council wants. In our experience the usual requests across South East Queensland are:

• Replacement planting. A NALL compliance notice can require you to replant by a stated date, or in some cases to pay council the full replacement value of the vegetation. If a permit is issued for further work, permit conditions can require replacement planting that achieves no net canopy loss within three years, and where replanting on site is not practical council may ask for an offset through a Private Works Order on council land.
• A rehabilitation or vegetation management plan. Where council wants the cleared area restored, we follow the approach in Brisbane’s Biodiversity areas planning scheme policy (SC6.3), which describes vegetation management plans and habitat restoration plans, because that is the guidance City Plan itself points to for vegetation management and habitat restoration plans. It sets out the area to be restored, species matched to the original regional ecosystem, stock sizes, planting densities, weed control and a maintenance period.
• An ecological assessment report. Where council wants to know what was lost, or a retrospective application is on the table, SC6.3 describes an ecological assessment with field work and a tree survey plan, and says desktop-only reports are not acceptable.
• A permit or operational works application. Where further work is still proposed, for example to finish the job lawfully, a protected vegetation permit under the NALL may be needed, and permit conditions can require replacement planting. Filling, excavation or vegetation management that was assessable under City Plan needs an operational works application, which an enforcement notice can require you to lodge. Where a significant landscape tree is involved, council’s permit guidance lists an AQF Level 5 arborist report as supporting material, and we bring an arborist in for that.

How do we respond to a Brisbane City Council notice?

1. Read the notice and confirm the deadline. Send us the whole letter with its attachments and maps. We check which law it is issued under, what it asks for and the date, and confirm anything unclear with council in writing.
2. Check the mapping and walk the site. We pull the NALL layers and City Plan overlays for your lot, compare old and current aerial photography to fix the cleared area, and a field ecologist records what is there now.
3. Write the plan. We prepare the written representations and the rehabilitation management plan, kept as simple as the notice allows. Whatever a plan proposes becomes an obligation, so we do not over-promise on your behalf.
4. Deal with council. We lodge, answer the assessment team’s technical questions and negotiate amendments. A first plan often comes back with changes requested, and that is normal.
5. See it through. In our experience a plan for a small owner typically runs about 12 months of establishment and maintenance before council signs off, and Brisbane can set a longer period, so we confirm it with council before the plan is written. We can handle the monitoring, or hand you a plan you can run yourself.

Which Brisbane overlays and local law layers decide whether you needed approval?

Brisbane City Plan 2014 is the planning scheme. The overlays that decide whether clearing or earthworks needed an approval are:

• Biodiversity areas overlay (map OM-002.2, overlay code 8.2.4, Table 5.10.4), with High and General ecological significance sub-categories, a Koala habitat area sub-category and Matters of state environmental significance. Filling or excavation that extends into the High or General ecological significance sub-categories outside an approved development footprint, or clearing more than 500 square metres of non-juvenile koala habitat trees in the Koala habitat area sub-category, is generally code assessable.
• Waterway corridors overlay (map OM-023.2, overlay code 8.2.26, Table 5.10.25). Filling or excavation of 100 millimetres or more in a Citywide or Local waterway corridor is code assessable, which catches a lot of creek-bank work on acreage.
• Wetlands overlay (code 8.2.27) and Significant landscape tree overlay (map OM-019.1, code 8.2.19), supported by the SC6.3 Biodiversity areas, SC6.22 Offsets and SC6.33 Vegetation planning scheme policies.

On top of City Plan sit the NALL mapping layers: significant native vegetation (SNV), significant urban vegetation (SUV) and waterway and wetland vegetation (WWV). Council’s Protected vegetation enquiry tool shows which apply to your lot. Koala habitat has a state layer too: where land is in both a koala priority area and a koala habitat area under the Planning Regulation 2017, interfering with koala habitat is prohibited development unless an exemption applies. Oxley Wedge and Rochedale are Brisbane’s identified koala broad-hectare areas, where City Plan applies instead of the state prohibition.

We cover the whole Brisbane local government area. Notices usually arise where bush, creeks and acreage meet: Brookfield, Upper Brookfield, Pullenvale, Anstead, Moggill, Karana Downs and Mount Crosby in the west; The Gap, Bardon, Kenmore Hills, Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron along the D’Aguilar foothills; Bridgeman Downs and Bald Hills in the north; and Burbank, Chandler, Gumdale, Belmont and Rochedale in the south-east. Outside Brisbane, see our pages for the Gold Coast, Logan and the Scenic Rim.

Why call an ecologist rather than reply yourself?

We are ecologists, so we write the document council’s assessment team is actually going to read. The first phone call costs nothing, and you get a clear written fee proposal before any work starts. We keep plans proportionate, talk to council directly, and work beside your lawyer or engineer where needed. Every matter is a negotiation with council, so we tell you what usually happens rather than promising a result. More on our services page.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to respond to a show cause notice from Brisbane City Council?

You are not legally obliged to, but not responding is usually the worst option. If council hears nothing on a Planning Act show cause notice it can move to an enforcement notice, an infringement notice or prosecution. A compliance notice under Brisbane’s Natural Assets Local Law 2003 (the NALL) is different: it already requires action, and if you do not comply council can do the remediation itself and recover the cost from you.

How long do I have to respond to a Brisbane City Council show cause or compliance notice?

A Planning Act show cause notice must give at least 20 business days, and an enforcement notice can be appealed to the Planning and Environment Court within 20 business days. A compliance notice under Brisbane’s Natural Assets Local Law states its own compliance date, and you have 14 days from the date of the notice to ask council to review the requirements. Check your notice, because the date printed on it is the one that counts.

Can I get an extension on a Brisbane City Council notice?

Ask council in writing before the deadline, not after it. In our experience South East Queensland councils usually allow a short extension once a consultant is engaged and a plan is under way. Extensions on an enforcement notice are harder to get, so do not rely on one.

Can Brisbane City Council make me replant the trees?

Yes. A compliance notice under Brisbane’s Natural Assets Local Law can require replanting or, in some cases, payment of the full replacement value of the vegetation, and a Planning Act enforcement notice can require the land to be restored as far as practicable. A well written rehabilitation management plan is usually how that requirement is met on reasonable terms.

What is the fine for clearing protected vegetation in Brisbane?

The maximum under Brisbane’s Natural Assets Local Law 2003 is 500 penalty units for an individual or 850 for a company, and a development offence under the Planning Act 2016 carries up to 4,500 penalty units. The state sets the dollar value of a penalty unit each year: at the current value 500 units is more than $85,000 and 4,500 units is more than $770,000. Those are the ceilings a court could impose. Council’s own permit guide says outcomes range from infringement notices for minor matters to rehabilitation, compensation or prosecution for serious ones, and a notice on its own is not a fine.

Did I actually need a permit to remove the trees?

Sometimes not. Brisbane’s Natural Assets Local Law exempts, for trees other than a significant landscape tree, pruning of up to 20 per cent of live foliage in 12 months spread evenly over the crown, and removal of a tree whose whole trunk is within 3 metres of a lawfully built and occupied dwelling (6 metres on lots over 4,000 square metres). It also exempts dead trees under 20 centimetres trunk diameter that are not providing habitat, and trees that were an immediate and significant threat if photographs reach council within 10 business days. Each exemption has conditions and a state law can still apply, so we check them against your facts before you reply.

I think I actually did the wrong thing. Can you still help?

Yes. Our job is not to judge what happened but to work out what council needs now and get it done honestly, because an open response is the one council works with. If a matter went as far as a Planning and Environment Court enforcement order it can be recorded on the title and bind future owners, which is a strong reason to resolve things at the notice stage.

A five minute call today is worth more than a rushed reply on the deadline. Send the notice through, or reach us through the contact page.

Sources: Brisbane City Council protected vegetation permits page, Brisbane City Plan 2014 overlay codes and SC6.3 policy, Natural Assets Local Law 2003, Planning Act 2016.

Prepared by Tim Fergusson-Calwell, Director, Envirosphere Environmental Consulting. Last reviewed 19 October 2026. Envirosphere Environmental Consulting, Gold Coast, Queensland.