Land Parcel and Property theme
The Land Parcel and Property theme provides cadastral and property data for NSW, including land parcel boundaries and identifiers to support planning, land administration and service delivery.
What is the Land Parcel and Property theme?
A land parcel is an area of land with defined boundaries, managed under specific property rights or interests. A property is something that can be owned in the form of real property (land), including physical use of the land, and legal rights that apply now or in the future.
The Land Parcel and Property theme brings together up-to-date, parcel-based land information. The theme, also called a 'cadastre', includes a unique identifier for parcels that can be linked to records about interests in land, such as:
- rights
- restrictions
- responsibilities.
The theme includes a geometric definition of parcels that can be linked to other information, such as land titles, and in some cases information about value and improvements.
The Land Parcel and Property theme provides the foundation fabric of land ownership in NSW. It supports:
- secure tenure and access to capital, land use and development decisions
- infrastructure and property planning
- analysis that informs environmental management, emergency management, and water and carbon accounting.
Data sourcing
DCS Spatial Services maintains the Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB). We capture changes to the statewide cadastral fabric from new survey plans and other sources.
DCDB maintenance and upgrades
The DCDB maintenance program updates the cadastre based on:
- plan registrations (deposited and strata plans)
- gazettal and dealing activity
- administrative boundary adjustment.
Information in the Cadastral Fabric and Cadastral Features datasets is generally current within 10 working days of a plan being lodged with NSW Land Registry Services.
Spatial Services also runs an ongoing upgrade program to improve positional accuracy.
Upgrades are done using survey plans and survey control networks to improve the accuracy of the data in the DCDB. The cadastral upgrade program also uses improved data from councils and other partners.
Spatial Services updates this theme with information from stakeholders and custodians. We work with local and state government to improve the accuracy of the DCDB over time.
Spatial Services
Spatial Services
Images displaying before (above) and after (below) a cadastral upgrade in the Lachlan Shire LGA town of Albert. A mean shift of 43m was achieved.
Technical information
Positional accuracy varies across NSW. It generally ranges from under 5 metres from true position in rural areas, to under 0.2 metres in urban areas, depending on available survey control.
Data quality is managed through specification compliance and topology rules. Metadata for Spatial Services datasets aligns with:
- AS/NZS ISO 19115
- ANZLIC Metadata Profile.
Datasets in the theme
What’s in the dataset?
Cadastral Fabric is the core parcel layer in the DCDB. It includes:
- lots (parcels created on survey plans)
- dedicated public roads
- unidentified parcels that cannot be matched to a current lot/plan identifier
- water features where water forms a cadastral boundary.
Dataset uses
Cadastral Fabric supports:
- land administration and planning
- property and infrastructure development
- native title and conservation work
- defence and disaster management
- wider spatial analysis when combined with addressing and administrative boundaries.
Sourcing and updates
Cadastral Fabric is updated continuously through the DCDB maintenance program. Changes are delivered to customers through an overnight update cycle.
Data is generally current within 10 working days of a plan being lodged with NSW Land Registry Services.
Spatial Services
What’s in the dataset?
Cadastral Features describe legal and reference features associated with parcels, including:
- easements
- road corridors and centrelines
- railway corridors
- water feature corridors
- watermarks, such as high and low watermarks
- authority references that record changes made through gazettals, Acts or government actions.
Dataset uses
The dataset supports understanding and managing land-related rights and responsibilities, eg easements.
The dataset also provides:
- context for land use planning
- infrastructure delivery and maintenance
- emergency management
- environmental management.
Sourcing and updates
The dataset is updated continuously. Most changes come from registration of Deposited Plans and Strata Plans and gazettal activity. Changes are delivered to customers to reflect changes made.
What’s in the dataset?
Property is a polygon dataset representing property descriptions provided by Property NSW through the Valnet database.
Properties are grouped as:
- complete
- incomplete or
- other.
Dataset uses
The dataset is used to spatially locate a property as defined in Valnet. A property contains the address features related to it.
The Property dataset supports addressing, planning and analysis that needs a reliable link between land parcels, properties and addresses.
Sourcing and updates
Property information is accurate at the time it is captured, with processes in place to continuously update the data as new information is obtained.
Benefits of this data
This data gives you a consistent, authoritative view of land parcels and property information in NSW, so you can link location to decisions, services and reporting.
The data can help users:
- make planning and development decisions using clear parcel boundaries and identifiers
- support land administration and property transactions with a shared view of parcels across NSW
- plan and deliver infrastructure and property services with better location-based analysis
- understand land-related rights and responsibilities, including easements and road corridors
- support work that relies on parcel context, such as native title, conservation and heritage protection
- improve situational awareness for emergency, defence and disaster management
- use parcel and property information as an input to water and carbon accounting and reporting.
View the datasets
The NSW Spatial Collaboration Portal (SCP) gives everyone the ability to search and discover spatial datasets.
It also allows local, state, and federal agencies to deliver spatial data, asset management and visualisation services securely.