Planning schemes regulate new use and development of land. They have two parts; - a document that sets out the requirements or standards for use and development, and - maps indicating where the requirements or standards apply. The Tasmanian Interim Planning Scheme Zoning dataset is an online mapping resource incorporating all planning zones within the state where interim schemes remain in effect, and is linked to online supporting documentation.

The Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) has responsibility for maintaining the dataset to ensure data quality standards are maintained, to accommodate future zoning amendments, and to realign zone boundaries to comply with changes to the cadastre. The dataset is continually being updated. .

Interim planning schemes have been compiled by each Tasmanian municipal council using a zoning template provided by TPC. TPC also provided a set of business rules to guide construction of GIS layers. Individual council zoning layers were submitted to TPC during 2012-2014 for quality assessment. Councils were tasked with performing corrections to errors/inconsistencies identified by the assessment process. Additional data quality specifications were imposed by TPC to ensure the datasets met the accuracy, consistency and completeness prerequisites required to publish the data on the Land Information System Tasmania (LIST) website. TPC performed additional formatting to council zoning layers to standardise layer attributes prior to entering the data into the LIST data management system. ArcGIS topology tools are employed to routinely check topological consistency and adherence to data quality specifications. Positional accuracy: Zone boundaries that are aligned with LIST parcel boundaries share the same positional accuracy as parcel boundaries. Zone boundaries along the edges of local government areas are aligned with LGA boundaries. In most cases LGA boundaries follow parcel boundaries. Where LGA and parcel boundaries are not aligned, zone boundaries share the same positional accuracy as LGA boundaries. In Southern and North-western Regions zones extend seaward 200m from the MHWM and therefore do not align with coastal LGA boundaries. A significant number of zone boundaries are located along formed roads. In most cases these boundaries follow or are close to road centrelines, and are confined within road corridor (casement) parcels. Confinement is also generally applied where road centrelines transgress casement parcels due to differences in the positional accuracy between the two datasets. In these situations zone boundary accuracy is not specified. Attribute accuracy: Zoning attributes have been exhaustively checked and can be assumed > 99% correct. Completeness: The state-wide interim zoning layer is incomplete - zoning for Flinders Island municipality and the area covering the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme 1997 have not been submitted. Further information on planning schemes can be found on the Tasmanian Planning Commission website at http://www.planning.tas.gov.au