Solar Access and Overshadowing

The paper was presented at a workshop for professionals involved in residential building approvals in NSW, Australia.Solar geometry and shadow casting are purely geometric exercises, which should be well within the competence of any practicing architect or building designer. Yet, perhaps because most Council officers are not trained in physical planning, and because most applicants do not produce convincing evidence of solar access compliance, it remains one of the most contentious areas of assessment.To set out the basis of understanding the controls, and effective ways of dealing with them, the paper repeats materials from earlier papers Daylight & Solar Access, NEERG Seminar of 31 August 2006, and from the seminar of 21 May 2009. In this paper, those discussions are extended to include observations about the evolving interpretation of the so-called Parsonage Principle, and to comment briefly on the impact of complying development as defined in recent changes to the NSW planning regime