Multi-residential

Before any design, we read your site properly. We check the zoning under the Local Environmental Plan, the minimum lot size and width, the floor space ratio and the height limit, and we read the Section 10.7 planning certificate for heritage, bushfire, flood and coastal overlays.

From that we give you an honest view of how many dwellings the block can reasonably carry and by which approval pathway. This first step stops money going into a design the site was never likely to support.

Owners usually come to us with a question about yield: can this block take a second home, or a third. Feasibility is where that question gets a considered answer rather than a hopeful one.

There are two ways to seek approval, and the difference matters. Complying development is a faster approval issued by a private certifier, with a statutory determination period that is often around twenty days, but it is only available where the design meets every prescriptive standard and the site is clear of exclusions such as heritage or flood.

Any non-compliance, even a small one, sends the project to a development application to council. That path is discretionary and commonly runs several months, and it can be extended by requests for further information.

Recent statewide reforms have widened where these homes are permitted. Dual occupancies are now permissible in many low density residential areas, and terraces, townhouses and manor houses have been made permissible in more locations near town centres and stations. Permissibility is not the same as approval, though, and it still depends on your particular site and its controls. The design has to meet those controls, and we shape it to give the chosen pathway the best chance.

A good multi-dwelling scheme depends on how well the homes share one block. We orient the living spaces of each dwelling to the north for winter sun, keep the homes out of each other's shadow, and give every home real privacy and a usable garden rather than leftover space.

This is what the BASIX and current NatHERS energy standards are built around, and it is what makes the homes comfortable to live in and easier to sell. Restraint with natural materials, timber, stone and concrete used sparingly, helps the homes feel calm and coherent side by side rather than competing.

The aim is a pair, or a group, of homes that read as quality to a buyer and as considered, neighbourly design to council, not two bulky boxes pushed to the boundary.

A multi-dwelling application draws in a team, and we assemble and manage it. Depending on the site that can mean a surveyor, a BASIX and NatHERS energy assessor, a stormwater and civil engineer, a structural engineer, a landscape designer, an arborist, and a bushfire or geotechnical consultant.

We resolve the plans, package the drawings and reports, lodge the application, and handle the back and forth with council or the certifier, including responses to further information requests and conditions of consent. You are not left decoding planning language on your own.

Where you intend to end up with separate titles, we plan the subdivision from the start, coordinating Torrens or strata subdivision with the surveyor so the built form, driveways, services and fire separation all support it.

Owners want to know what it really costs, all in, and whether the project stacks up. Beyond construction there are design and documentation fees, consultant reports, application and certification fees, developer contributions to council, and subdivision and legal costs.

We set an indicative budget at the feasibility stage, before you commit to full design, and we help you weigh the likely end value or rent against the total spend. When the drawings are ready we help you obtain and compare builder prices, review them against that budget, and can stay involved through construction so the built work matches the drawings.

Whether you can keep living there during the work depends on the site and the staging, and we talk that through early.