A 28 August 2026 product and source snapshot covering Plynth's NSW parcel resolution, 79 delivered map layers and cited-source workflow.
NSW site research draws on several kinds of evidence. Parcel geometry identifies the land, planning maps attach controls to it, legislation supplies the governing words, and infrastructure or demographic data explains the wider context. These sources change on different schedules, so useful coverage depends on both the dataset and its date.
Plynth brings those sources into one site-based workflow. The clearest finding from the current product register is its balance: 40 delivered map layers cover planning and site constraints, while 39 cover infrastructure, energy, resources and other context that can change an early project question.
Direct answer
As at 28 August 2026, Plynth's live product surface describes NSW-wide coverage, more than 2.4 million resolved parcels, 79 planning and infrastructure map layers, and answers that retain clause-level citations and source text. A separate check of the current map delivery registry confirmed 79 unique layer IDs.
Those 79 layers are divided into two working families. Planning Layers contains 40 layers used to understand what governs or constrains a site. Infrastructure & Energy contains 39 layers used to understand access, surrounding systems and economic context. The near-even split matters because an early site decision usually needs both the rule and the conditions around it.
Plynth's 79 delivered NSW map layers are split 40 to 39 between site controls and wider context
The current delivery registry groups every user-facing map toggle by the planning question it helps answer.
- 1Mining and resources15
- 2Transport14
- 3Environmental10
- 4Core planning controls9
- 5Housing policy6
- 6Coastal5
- 7Energy infrastructure5
- 8Hazards5
- 9Renewable Energy Zones5
- 10Protection and constraints3
- 11Heritage2
- Delivered map layers
- 79
- Every layer is a user-facing toggle in the current NSW delivery registry.
- Planning and site controls
- 40
- Core controls, hazards, housing, heritage, coastal, environmental and protection layers.
- Infrastructure and economic context
- 39
- Transport, energy, resources and Renewable Energy Zone layers.
What Plynth covers and which question each source answers
The register is organised by decision, not file format. That keeps a parcel layer, a legislative clause and an area statistic from being treated as interchangeable just because they can appear in the same analysis.
| Evidence family | Question it helps answer | Main upstream authority | Useful geography or grain | Update clock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parcel and address resolution | Which land is the question about? | NSW authoritative address and cadastral services | Address, lot and parcel | Service and cadastral updates, checked when the site is resolved |
| Planning and site-control maps | Which mapped controls or constraints intersect the land? | NSW Planning Portal and other NSW spatial publishers | Parcel intersection, point, line or polygon feature | Dataset-specific service updates |
| Infrastructure and economic context | What transport, energy, resource or strategic systems surround the site? | NSW and Commonwealth infrastructure and resource publishers | Asset, corridor, network, project area or region | Publisher, project and service updates |
| Planning instruments | Which provision governs the mapped control or proposed use? | NSW legislation and the NSW planning department | Instrument, clause, schedule and incorporated map | Commencement, amendment, repeal and map replacement |
| Building requirements | Which national requirement and NSW adoption position needs to be checked? | Australian Building Codes Board and NSW Government | Code edition, volume, provision and State adoption | Edition, amendment and adoption cycles |
| Demographic and market context | What does the surrounding population, housing or economic profile show? | Australian Bureau of Statistics and other named statistical publishers | Census area, local government area or another published region | Scheduled release with publisher revisions |
| Development activity | What applications, proposals or projects are recorded around the site? | NSW planning sources and participating councils | Application, proposal, project and associated geography | Source-feed and publisher update cycles |
Update timing depends on the source
"Current" means something different for each source family. Planning law changes when an instrument commences or is amended. A spatial layer changes when its publisher updates the dataset or service. The National Construction Code follows an edition and adoption cycle. Census and other statistics carry a named period and later revisions.
A useful Plynth freshness record therefore keeps four facts visible:
- the publisher and stable source identity;
- the source's effective date, reference period or dataset vintage;
- the last successful Plynth retrieval or product check; and
- the date the conclusion was reviewed.
This separation is more informative than stamping every source with the date a page happened to be deployed. It lets a reader decide whether the evidence is fresh enough for the question being asked.
The 40 to 39 split changes how a site review begins
The 40 planning and site-control layers answer questions about zoning, height, floor-space ratio, minimum lot size, hazards, heritage, environmental constraints and housing policy. The 39 context layers answer a different set of questions about transport access, energy systems, mining and resources, Renewable Energy Zones and strategic protection areas.
Putting both families on the same resolved parcel changes the work in three ways:
- a control can be checked beside the physical or strategic system it relates to;
- portfolio comparisons can use the same source and measure across every site;
- the resulting map, source link and cited answer can move into later research or reporting.
Plynth adds authority by connecting the site to the particular sources that support the next question, instead of asking one summary field to stand in for the planning picture.
The next useful data layer is a catalogue of the catalogue
This article freezes the current public claims and delivered map registry. The next product-data step is to make coverage metadata itself queryable: dataset identity, publisher, geography, vintage, refresh result, licence, citation availability and product status should travel together.
That record would help users answer a practical question before analysis starts: is the required evidence already available in Plynth, ready to join to a supplied dataset, or being assessed for addition? It would also give the product and editorial teams one source for future coverage pages instead of rebuilding the inventory by hand.
Method and evidence
The live Plynth platform was checked on 28 August 2026 for the
public NSW coverage, parcel and citation claims. The delivered map-layer count
was independently reproduced from the frontend registry at commit
ca91adab60dda2b1dd9cea92b416dd832356472d: 79 unique IDs across 11 groups,
with 40 in Planning Layers and 39 in Infrastructure & Energy.
Source-family descriptions use the official NSW legislation collection, NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer, National Construction Code and Australian Bureau of Statistics Census records. Exact source dates remain attached to the register used by each article and answer.