Street Gardens

Greening Newcastle's streets has never been more important as we face the significant challenges of urban heat island effect, population growth and climate change. While we are planning for and responding to these challenges, we still need your help. One of the ways you can make your neighbourhood more liveable is by installing a street garden.


We are enabling residents to install and maintain street gardens because we recognise the many benefits they provide.

Street gardens:

  • Cool our streets
  • Support pollinators and other wildlife diversity
  • Help you meet your neighbours
  • Make you feel happier and healthier
  • Take in rainwater and reduce stormwater runoff
  • Filter stormwater so that our creeks, rivers and waterways are protected from pollution
  • Make your street look great

To make sure your street garden provides maximum benefits, the garden must be correctly designed, prepared, installed and receive ongoing maintenance. Our Street Garden Guidelines, Standard Drawings and Suggested Species Guide provides information on how to implement your street garden successfully. Detailed information regarding the different garden types and their construction requirements including maximum/minimum heights, clearance distances, etc, can be found within the Street Gardens Guidelines. It is vitally important that gardens constructed on public land comply with these guidelines to ensure safe pedestrian access is maintained for people walking along the footpath as well people entering/exiting from parked vehicles. Access also needs to be maintained to public utilities such as telecommunications boxes, electrical distribution boxes, bus stops and the like.

We encourage you to share your street garden plans with your neighbours using our Street Garden Postcard. Prior to submitting a registration form please check our Community Street Garden Planning Map below to ensure you do not live in one of our street garden exclusion zones. You can also use the map to see if you have a street tree vacancy where we can install a new street tree for you as part of your garden, and to check which planting zone your property is in (e.g. coastal, hill slopes or flats) which will assist you in choosing plants that will grow well in your area.

Once you have determined that you are not in an exclusion zone, please download a copy of the Street Garden Registration Form, fill it out and return it to us for assessment and approval. A response will be provided to you within 28 days of your submission.

For more information please contact us via email to: streetgardens@ncc.nsw.gov.au or call us on 02 4974 2000.

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