Vehicle Crossovers

Note: The links and documentation shown in this post can become outdated. Please ensure you check with the official Gold Coast documents from their website that you have the latest edition of the VXO documents. The owner of this website periodically checks and adjusts the information in this article aiming to maintain its accuracy but it is your responsibility to ensure you have the most current information from your local council. This post was reassessed on 20190317.

Some people would like to widen their driveway to improve vehicle access into their property. This article will aim to provide useful information about vehicle crossovers on the Gold Coast.

What Is A Vehicle Crossover?

A vehicle crossover will generally refer to the part of a driveway that begins at the road and (on the Gold Coast at least) ends at the property boundary. This area of a driveway can be called different names, some include: cross over, invert, ramp and footpath or the abbreviation “VXO” (short for Vehicle Cross “X” Over).

What Should I Know About a Vehicle Crossover?

Householders and young concrete labourers need to be aware that VXOs are not all the same. They vary in their size and specifications depending on the council that governs the area where the VXO is being placed, as well as varying in specifications for the property type.

VXOs are designed by the local council to control storm water drainage, offer a uniform look for the areas they are used and can also be designed to accommodate for future works like the placement of footpaths should that happen.

How Can I Find Out About Vehicular Crossovers in my Area?

It’s most likely that your local council will have a document available on their website or if you phone them they probably can mail you a paper one.

The Gold Coast City Council hosts the VXO document here (last accessed 20190317): http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/documents/fa/fm191_eac_en_f12_vehicular_crossovers.pdf

Tip: If you need to rotate the PDF because it is displaying sideways on your PC, you might be able to right-click with the mouse and select a rotate option to rotate the page.

How Can I Check If My VXO Is The Maximum Width?

Open the PDF linked to above and look at page 6.

There is a table titled Allowable Number and Width of Residential Driveways. This table is referring to Residential driveways only. The left most side of the table shows Single House and Duplex property categories. The Description column describes the garage types for those property categories. Match the property category and garage type for your property then follow the row across to the right of the table for that match.

This will give you the specifications for your driveway’s widths and how many VXOs are allowed on your property. Be aware that having multiple VXOs on a single property is subject to a number of conditions which are all detailed in the PDF.

For the GCCC VXO specifications, there is a column called W2. This point on the driveway is where the ramp from the gutter meets the roadside of the footpath, or where a footpath might be constructed at a later time. GCCC specifies that the road side of the footpath is 1500mm from the Kerb Invert, ie: the lowest point in the gutter where water flows.

Examples

1. Single House with Double Garage
   The second row of the table matches for a single house with a double garage (or more). The maximum number of VXOs for a property like this is 1 if your frontage is 40m or less. Maximum widths for the VXO are: 4.0m at the kerb, 3.0m at the W2 point (1500mm from the kerb invert) and 5.0m at the property boundary.
2. Single House with Double Garage and more than 40m Frontage
   Your property can have 2 VXOs if you have more than 40m frontage, and the VXOs are at least 12.0m apart. The maximum widths are the same as for a single house that can only have 1 VXO. There are additional restrictions for double VXOs that are detailed in the GCCC VXO PDF (see pages 1,2 and 4)
3. Duplex
   Duplex properties with more than 20m frontage are allowed to have 2 VXOs as long as the other conditions are met as explained in #2 above. Duplex properties also have larger maximum width specs: 5.0m at the kerb, 4.0m at the W2 point and 6.0m at the property boundary for single VXOs or 5.0m at the boundary for dual VXOs.

What Else Should I Consider?

I have had people ask me about widening their driveway on a duplex. With Duplexes you may also need to consider what is allowed by the property’s body corporate (usually the body corporate is comprised of you and your neighbour, as long as you both agree to what is going to be built and who pays for what there’s generally no problem)

Most of the time driveways are originally placed at the maximum sizes allowed by the council. You can save time by checking the measurements before ringing concrete contractors as they might not even be able to change the size.

If you are placing a new driveway and need to cut the kerb out ensure that the contractors doing the work for you prevent any concrete slurry going down the storm water drains. The council issues fines if they find evidence of this happening. This also goes for any other concrete product that may occur while constructing your driveway (like cement slurry washed off the top of exposed aggregate driveways).

You will also need to submit for your crossover to be inspected prior to concrete pouring if it is a new property. Usually the builder that built the property will do this unless some other arrangement was made. If the builder was not responsible for the driveway on the new property it is most likely the owner’s responsibility.

Relaxations

Sometimes there is no way a driveway can be constructed that fits the council’s typical requirements and what is doable in reality on site. This is usually due to inclining roads and/or the garage being built very close to the property boundary and being substantially higher or lower than the road height at the kerb.

In these cases the council can do a relaxation and will usually have an inspector come to site to create a design that will work.