Site research — what a section is, and what it could become
Site research looks up a New Zealand address and shows you what you are dealing with before you spend money on it: the legal boundary and land area, the title, the council zone and what it allows, the overlays and hazards on the land, which services reach the boundary, and a rough guide to how many homes the site could hold. A feasibility calculator then turns that into dollars, using your own figures.
Use it before you buy, before you brief a designer, or before you create a project. It takes a minute, and it uses public LINZ and council data.
Indicative only. Everything here is a rule of thumb based on public data. It is not planning advice. Overlays, precincts, plan changes and the ground itself all change what you can build. Check with a planner or the council, and get a LIM and the Record of Title before you commit.
Where it sits
Sidebar → Site Research, in the Manage Work layout. If you hire, it is the page QSME opens on after you sign in. It is on every plan and uses no credits. It reads New Zealand data, so it is only there for organisations based in New Zealand.
It also shows up in these places:
| Where | What you get |
|---|---|
| A project's page | The same site picture, in a Site research panel. Open in Site research takes you back to the full research. |
| Creating a project | After you pick the address, a check of services and hazards appears below it. |
| A property listing | Open in Site Search researches the listed address. |
| The phone app | Site search on the home screen. See On the phone. |
Looking an address up
Start typing an address and pick one of the suggestions. Shorthand works: "12 mt eden rd" finds 12 Mount Eden Road. You can also paste a full address with commas and a postcode. If that exact number isn't on the register, you get the closest match. You need to pick a suggestion, because a typed address with no map position can't be researched.
Results arrive one part at a time, so nothing holds the page up. The map and boundary come first. The development report comes last, because it asks the council's planning maps and can take 2–10 seconds.
What the page shows
| Panel | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Site & Zoning | An aerial map with the boundary in yellow, water, wastewater and stormwater runs, and flood areas. Switch between Zoning, which colours the street by zone, and Site only. Below the map are the land area, legal description, valuation reference and council. There is also a line on what kind of title it is (freehold, cross-lease or unit title), read from the legal description. |
| Services & hazards | Water supply, wastewater and stormwater: Available (a main within about 60 m), Nearby (within 150 m) or Not found nearby. Piped gas and electricity: whether the site is in the network's area. Flood plain, flood-prone area, overland flow path and coastal inundation: Clear or Present — check. |
| Development potential | A verdict and the indicative yield. See Development potential. |
| What could go here | The zone's name and map colour, what it is for, what you can do without resource consent, what is often possible with a resource consent, and its main standards (height, height in relation to boundary, yards, building coverage). |
| At this address on QSME | What QSME already knows about the address: an ownership claim, listings, your projects, public projects, a count of private projects by others, and recent events. |
| Planning overlays & controls | Everything else that applies to the land, grouped as Constraints, Design around, Opportunities and Good to know. Each one says what it means for building, with a link to the council document where there is one. |
| What this site would require | A checklist under Consents, Neighbours & approvals, Reports & design and Costs & checks. Each item is marked Required, Likely, Possible or Check, and says what on this site brings it in. You can filter it to the must-haves. |
| Rough feasibility | The calculator. See Rough feasibility. |
Overlays include special character areas, historic heritage, notable trees, significant ecological areas, volcanic viewshafts, aircraft noise, National Grid corridors, designations, precincts, stormwater management areas, height variation controls, intensification plan changes, landslide susceptibility and tsunami evacuation zones.
Full view
On the map, Full view (or Shift-F) takes QSME's menu and header away and gives the map the whole window, with the cards that were beside and under it still on screen.
- The details panel. The verdict, what could go here, the rough feasibility, the overlays and what the site would require, the boundary and title facts, services and hazards, and what QSME knows about the address move into a panel beside the map (on the left in Arabic). It scrolls on its own, and the button at the top folds it to a thin rail; the rail's button brings it back. Your choice is remembered in this browser.
- On a phone the details are a sheet under the map with a handle. Tap the handle, or swipe it up, to bring them up, and tap again to put them away.
- The map stays the map. It keeps its zoom, its zoning and site-only switch and its legend, and it resizes as the panel folds. The feasibility figures you typed come with you, and go back with you.
- Leave with Esc, the Exit full view pill in the top corner, or Shift-F. A popup or dialog that is open closes first, and Esc in a text field leaves the field. The page's link gets
?full=1, so a reload or a link you send opens in full view. On a laptop or desktop the button is a small menu with Full screen as well, which adds your browser's own full screen.
How much you get depends on the council
| Auckland | Wellington City, Christchurch, Hamilton | Anywhere else in NZ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boundary, area, legal description, council, title | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The street's zoning in colour on the map | Yes | No | No |
| Zone | Yes, from the Unitary Plan | Yes, from the district plan | No |
| What the zone allows | With the Unitary Plan's figures | A general guide for that type of zone, with no figures | — |
| Overlays, controls, precincts | Yes | No | No |
| Services & hazards | Yes | No | No |
| Development potential | Full | Home counts only, based on the type of zone | "Zone not known here" |
The zoning, title and service data comes from LINZ, the councils' district and unitary plans, Auckland Council, Watercare and Vector. QSME keeps each answer for a day, so looking up the same address again is quick. Pipe positions on the map are approximate, so lodge a beforeUdig request before anyone digs.
Development potential
The verdict gives you the answer at a glance: Strong, Good, Moderate or Limited. It is None where QSME doesn't know the zone. It weighs how dense the zone is, how big the site is, how many homes it could hold, constraints and opportunities on the land, any hazards, and any missing water, wastewater or stormwater mains. The pluses and minuses are listed under it, so you can see why.
The figures show only what QSME can work out for this site:
| Figure | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Homes without consent | What the zone permits, subject to its standards. Where more than one home is permitted, it is capped at one per 110 m² of land. |
| Homes with consent | A range: the land area divided by a cautious and an ambitious land area per home for the zone. In low-density zones it is one home per lot, at the minimum lot size. |
| Max building footprint | Land area × the zone's building coverage. |
| Height | The zone's height and storeys, or the height variation control's where one applies. |
| Indicative floor area | Footprint × storeys × 0.85, to allow for stairs, halls and the roof. Gross, for all homes together. |
| Subdivision lots | Land area ÷ the zone's minimum lot size. |
| Max impervious area / min landscaped area | Land area × the zone's percentages. |
Notes under the figures warn when something lowers the realistic number. Examples are special character rules, a heritage place, a viewshaft over the land, or a council whose own figures QSME doesn't have yet. Treat the yield as a ceiling to discuss with a planner, not a promise.
Rough feasibility
Your numbers, our arithmetic. Everything is filled in to start with, and you can change any figure.
| Input | Starts at |
|---|---|
| Land price | Blank. You enter it. |
| Homes | From the report: the top of the with-consent range, otherwise the homes without consent, otherwise 1. |
| Average home size | 110 m² |
| Build cost per m² | $4,000. Change it to your builder's rate. |
| Contributions per extra home | $30,000: council development contributions plus Watercare's growth charge. |
| Soft costs | 15%: design, consents, engineering, legal, marketing. |
| Finance | 8% |
| Sale price per home | Blank. You enter it. |
It works out build cost (homes × size × rate), contributions (for every home but one, since the existing home already covers one), soft costs (a percentage of build cost and contributions), finance (a percentage of everything, land included), then total cost, revenue, profit and margin on cost. Profit and margin appear once you have entered a land price and a sale price. The last line is what you could pay for the land and still make a 20% margin. Amounts are rounded to the nearest $1,000. The calculator doesn't save your figures.
Your saved sites and searches
Every address you pick goes into your history straight away.
- Recent searches are deleted after 90 days. Looking an address up again restarts the 90 days.
- Save this research (or the bookmark on an entry) keeps it until you remove it. Remove the bookmark and the 90 days start again.
- A search you turned into a project is kept for good, and its entry offers Open project.
- The bin icon removes a search you haven't saved.
Click any entry to open the same research again. Your history holds the 50 addresses you looked up most recently.
Creating a project from it
Create project here opens the new-project form with the address already filled in. When the project is created, the research is linked to it and kept. The project's page then opens, with the same site picture in its Site research panel. If you already have a project at that address, you also get a button to open it. Starting another project at an address that already has one is normal, for example a renovation or a new stage.
The Pro view
Open Pro view shows the same site on a full-height aerial map with a panel beside it.
- Map layers. Turn Zoning, Buildings (outlines of existing buildings), Services and Flood & hazards on and off. You only get a switch for layers that have data.
- Tabs. Summary, Title (title number, type, estate, status, issue date, guarantee, land district, how many owners), Zoning, Overlays, Characteristics, CV & sales and Feasibility.
- Full view. The same button and Shift-F as on the main page give the map and the panel the whole window; the panel folds to a rail with the button at the end of its tab bar.
- One pager. Prints a one-page QSME site report: an aerial photo, key facts, title, zoning and potential, overlays, services and hazards. Choose Save as PDF in the print dialog to keep it as a file.
Owner names, rating valuations (CV) and sale history come from paid data sources, and QSME hasn't connected those yet. Those sections show Available with a data licence instead. The number of owners on the title is shown.
Simple view takes you back. Addresses you search inside the Pro view aren't added to your history, so search on the main page if you want to keep one.
On the phone
Site search is on the home screen for both people who hire and trades. It also appears on the welcome screen, where it works without signing in. It gives you the same report in one scrolling page: the map with Zoning, Buildings, Services and Hazards switches, the verdict, title, zone, potential, overlays, services and hazards, CV and sales, the requirements and the feasibility calculator.
The last eight addresses you looked up are kept on that phone only. They aren't your web history. When you're signed in and can create projects, Create project here opens the new-project form with the address filled in. The Pro view and the one-pager are only on the web.
Words used on this page
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Zone | The council's label for an area of land, which sets what you can build there and how much. |
| Overlay / control | An extra layer of rules on top of the zone, such as heritage, trees, flooding or height. |
| Precinct | A local set of rules that adds to, or replaces, the zone's rules. |
| Designation | Land set aside for public works. The authority responsible has to approve any work on it. |
| Resource consent | Council permission for a use or design that the plan doesn't allow outright. |
| Building consent | Council approval of the building work itself. Needed for every new home. |
| Yield | How many homes, or how much floor area, a site could hold. |
| LIM | Land Information Memorandum: the council's record of a property. |
More in the glossary.
If something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Zoning data isn't available for this council yet" | QSME can read zoning for Auckland, Wellington City, Christchurch and Hamilton so far. |
| "Overlay data isn't loaded for this council yet — zone only" | Overlays and controls are only available for Auckland so far. |
| "Services & hazard data isn't available for this area yet" | Services and hazards are only available for Auckland so far. |
| "general guide for this zone type" | That council's own figures aren't loaded yet, so the zone is described by its type. |
| "This address has no map coordinates" | The address was typed but not picked from the suggestions. Pick one. |
| "Couldn't load the development report" | The council's planning maps were slow to answer. Press Retry. |
| A service or hazard says "No data" | That source didn't answer in time. Look the address up again in a few minutes. |
| "That research is no longer in your history" | The search was removed, or deleted after 90 days. Search the address again. |
| Site Research isn't in your sidebar | You are in the Find Work layout, or your organisation is outside New Zealand. |
Still stuck? hello@qsme.co.nz, or +64 27 338 8500.