Sunshine Coast Council lists its flood information search at $132.00 for 2026–27

Which map decides whether you need one

On 21 September 2023 Council designated a flood hazard area for building regulation purposes by resolution, and that designation supersedes the one in the Sunshine Coast planning scheme. Council describes the map as the trigger for requesting a flood information search. Its buffer areas take in freeboard, overland flow paths and street drainage, so that certifiers can pick up properties that are not mapped as flood affected but sit next to flooding.

The planning scheme's own flood overlay map has not gone away. Council says its main purpose is to identify when the scheme's flood hazard overlay code applies. A raise is read against both maps: the 2023 one for the search, the scheme's overlay for the scheme's flood rules. The 2023 map is easiest to read on Council's Development.i site report.

What the search tells a certifier

Council's page says the self-assessable search gives five things: the defined flood level, the maximum flow velocity, whether the lot is an inactive flow or backwater area, the freeboard and the finished floor level. The Building Regulation 2021 defines the flood level as the level to which it is reasonably expected flood waters may rise, and freeboard as a height above it that allows for things that push water higher.

Council's freeboard depends on where the water comes from. River and creek floods typically take 500mm; stormwater flooding from drainage takes 300mm. Where a lot floods from more than one source, the floor level is set from whichever gives the highest minimum, and on some lots the search cannot define a minimum floor level at all.

Who orders it, and what it costs

For accepted development building a new dwelling, Council says the search will normally be requested by the building certifier. A second kind of search applies to a development application that Council assesses, only when the Council officer handling it asks for one, and it leaves out the finished floor level because another planning control may set it. Council's page does not name house raising in either case, so ask the certifier on your job which search they need.

Searches are requested through MyCouncil online services and fees apply. Council's register of general cost-recovery fees for 2026–27 lists the Flood Information Search at $132.00. A refund is only possible if you cancel before the request is processed. If the lot turns out to be drainage deficient, Council adds a survey search that takes up to 20 working days.

Which flood rules reach a raise

The state building code for flood hazard areas, the Queensland Development Code's MP 3.5, says it does not apply to building work that is for, or directly relates to, raising an existing building. Council's search supplies the figures that code asks for, but for the raise itself they are a design input, not a code it has to meet. Work added underneath is a separate question for the certifier.

The Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme 2014 is a separate control. Its flood hazard overlay code reaches building work on the scheme's overlay map unless it is minor building work, which the scheme defines as adding less than five per cent of the existing floor area or 50m², whichever is less, without intruding into a boundary setback. Rooms built in underneath can take a raise past that line. For a house, the code then asks for every habitable room to sit at least 500mm above the defined flood event, and for enclosed parking below that level to drain by gravity, without pumping.

A raise also adds height. On flood overlay land the scheme lifts the mapped height limit by the gap between ground level and the minimum design floor level, and for a house in the Low density residential zone that allowance is capped at 1 metre. Settle the floor level and the height with the certifier before the lift height is chosen, not after.