Pattern Book Row Homes 01: the NSW row home design explained

There are two versions of the design. Inside a low and mid rise (LMR) housing area the minimum lot is 13 metres wide and 500 square metres. Everywhere else in NSW the minimum lot is 15.5 metres wide and 600 square metres, dropping back to 13 metres wide on a corner or rear lane lot, and the lot must also meet the minimum lot size in your council's local environmental plan. Lot width is measured at the front building line.

Width is the easy test. Length is the one that decides how many homes you get, because the row runs back from the street: the building is only 6.44 metres deep across the frontage, and it grows in module steps down the length of the block. The base pattern of four 2 bedroom homes is 29.77 metres long and needs a site at least 42.9 metres long in an LMR housing area or 47.5 metres elsewhere. The shortest published row, three 1 bedroom homes, needs 28.4 metres and 33.0 metres.

All 11 official siting and orientation examples are below, six for LMR housing areas and five for the rest of NSW. They cover mid block, corner and rear lane lots, north, south, east and west frontages, and two sites next door to each other both using the pattern. Note the rule the sheets carry: every private garden must face into the north east or north west quadrant, which is what fixes which side of the row the gardens sit on.

Type your address to load your actual block from the NSW cadastre, including its boundaries, zoning and planning layers. Dudils screens lot size, orientation and slope to find patterns that could work. It does not complete a planning eligibility assessment. Dudils screens slope from the national elevation model, which is indicative and not a survey, so confirm the fall across your site against the limits above. Also check council and State mapping to confirm the land is not bush fire prone or on excluded flood prone land. Heritage items and conservation areas, landslip risk land, land affected by a registered easement, coastal hazard land, foreshore land and unsewered land can also rule the pattern out.

Multi dwelling housing under this pattern is permitted wherever multi dwelling housing is already permitted with consent in NSW. Which version you use depends on where the site sits. The Low and Mid Rise Housing Policy applies in selected residential zones within an 800 metre walk of town centres and stations, and those areas are called LMR housing areas. They get the smaller 500 square metre base pattern with parking at the front. Every other location uses the 600 square metre base pattern with parking at the rear. You can look your address up on the NSW Planning Portal map, or type it above and the lot finder checks it for you.

The fast tracked pathway is a complying development certificate under the Pattern Book Development Code, which sits in Part 3BA of the Codes SEPP. Like any complying development, it is not available on high risk or constrained land. Bush fire prone land and certain flood prone land are excluded, and pattern book complying development is not permitted on heritage items or in heritage conservation areas.

If the land is excluded from complying development you can still propose the pattern, but it has to go through a standard development application instead. The fast track your planning approval page sets out both routes.

The row is a line of narrow houses turned side on to the street. Each home has its own entry alcove with a built in seat, reached from a shared landscaped pedestrian lane that runs the length of the site. Behind the entry sit a WC and laundry, then the kitchen and dining room with an optional island, then the living room, which opens through full height glazing to a private garden courtyard at least 4 metres deep on the other side of the row.

Upstairs each home has its bedrooms with built in robes, a bathroom and a study nook, all opening onto a balcony that wraps the garden side. The balcony has fixed and optional privacy screening, and it shades the ground floor glazing below. Slender columns and regular battens give the upper level its rhythm; the ground floor is face brick, which also forms the garden walls and side fences between courtyards.

The building is 6.44 metres deep and 8.14 metres including the balcony, and the base pattern of four 2 bedroom homes is 29.77 metres long. Above it sits one continuous hipped roof with a hip at each end and a photovoltaic panel zone over every module. Each home has a rainwater tank, space for three 240 litre bins, and is all electric with provision for a heat pump hot water unit.

The complete drawing sequence below covers the site plan for LMR housing areas, the site plan for everywhere else, the three published site adaptations for rear lane and corner lots, then the ground floor, first floor and roof of the base pattern, and finally the six modules the row is assembled from, in axonometric and in plan.

These are the gross floor areas published for each module. Front and rear modules (F types) are a square metre larger than the equivalent middle module (M type) because of the end wall, and every home is two storeys whichever type it is.

The whole development adds up from the modules you choose, so the gross floor area of the building ranges from 155 square metres for a row of three 1 bedroom homes to 434 square metres for a row of four 3 bedroom homes. Each home can be strata titled.

The pattern is a kit of six modules with strict assembly rules rather than a single fixed building. Three module types sit at the front and the rear of the row (F1, F2 and F3, of one, two and three bedrooms), and three sit in the middle (M1, M2 and M3). Every site must use an F type at the street end and a mirrored F type at the rear, and you can choose any combination of M types between them.

That gives the 12 published combinations below, six of four homes and six of three. Each card reports the mix, the number of homes, the gross floor area and the minimum site length the combination needs, both inside and outside an LMR housing area. Add the front and rear setbacks for your site type to the building length and you have the block you need.

Beyond the mix you can choose the parking position (front or rear, depending on site depth and whether a secondary street or lane is available), the material palette, an optional kitchen island, an optional window for passive surveillance beside the entry, and level changes for a sloping site. What stays fixed is the module layouts themselves, the entry sequence, the private garden facing the north east or north west quadrant, and the hipped roof form. Every option you select has to be declared in the design verification statement lodged with the application.

Four palettes are published. All of them keep the same arrangement: a face brick ground floor that also forms the party walls, side fences and garden walls, painted lightweight cladding with battens and screens above, and a metal roof with gutters, downpipes and flashings finished to match. What changes is the brick colour and the colour of the painted upper level.

The pattern rules are specific. The brick must be a pressed brick left raw, with no render or paint, and the mortar tone must match it. Every painted element has to be the same colour, though sheens can vary, and the entry alcove is painted a darker or lighter shade of that colour. Choose the palette that suits the character of your street, and pair it with a site specific landscape plan prepared against the NSW Housing Pattern Book Landscape Design Guide and the Tree Canopy Guide for Low and Mid Rise Housing.

Dudils screens lot size and orientation to identify patterns that could work. It does not complete a planning eligibility assessment. Before buying a site, taking an option on it or buying the pattern licence, check the current State and council mapping and get professional advice.

Check the survey contours first. The design absorbs a fall of up to 2.7 metres front to back and 1.1 metres side to side on the typical four home base pattern, using a maximum slope of 1 in 20 along the site, retaining walls between modules and no more than a single 190 millimetre riser. Longer module combinations can take a little more fall, up to about 3.6 metres, but Dudils only screens slope from the national elevation model, which is indicative and not a survey, so a steeper site puts the pattern out of reach until a designer has tested it.

The pathway does not work on bush fire prone land, even at the lowest rating of BAL 12.5, or on excluded flood prone land. Heritage items and heritage conservation areas, landslip risk land, registered easements that cross the proposed building area, coastal hazard land, foreshore land and unsewered land also need to be ruled out, and a battle axe lot has no street frontage so the pattern cannot be sited on it.

Length is the constraint that catches people out. A 13 metre frontage is easy to find, but a site short of the minimum length for your chosen module mix cannot take that mix, and outside an LMR housing area the deeper rear setback (11.5 metres minimum, drawn at 11.67 metres) adds about 4.6 metres to every site length. Orientation matters too, because the private gardens must face the north east or north west quadrant, and a site north of existing homes can overshadow neighbours to the south, so test shadows early.

We recommend asking Good Architect to undertake a site feasibility study before buying the land or the pattern licence. The study can test the planning constraints, the contours and the module mix your block will carry before you commit.

These are the numeric controls specific to this pattern, taken from the official pattern document. They apply where the design is proposed as pattern book complying development under the Codes SEPP.

Using the pattern starts with the NSW Government licence. On 6 August 2026 the official shop listed Pattern Book Row Homes 01 at $1,000.00, badged as subsidised for the first six months, and it was available to buy. Price and availability can change, so check the shop before you rely on that figure. The licence covers a single site.

The fee buys the technical drawings in PDF and DWG formats, a BASIX information sheet for the pattern, an editable design verification statement template, the pattern book landscape guide and a unique identification number to quote in your application. Files are delivered electronically within five business days and you have 30 days to download them.

You then engage an architect or accredited designer to adapt the drawings to your site and prepare the application. The design verification statement must be completed by an architect on the NSW Register of Architects or by an accredited designer, who must state their professional registration.

The application is lodged as a complying development certificate with a council or a private certifier. The NSW Government has said a pattern book complying development is assessed in 10 days, against 20 days for standard residential complying development. The launch announcement and the guidance for low rise pattern book users set out the process.

The pattern drawings are an indicative design for the planning application, not construction documents. You still need construction documentation, engineering, a BASIX certificate and a NatHERS thermal assessment, a survey, a landscape plan, a stormwater design and a strata subdivision plan. Because these homes are Class 1a rather than Class 2, the Design and Building Practitioners scheme does not apply to them the way it does to the manor house pattern.

Before committing to the land, the licence or the application, start with Good Architect's site feasibility study so the pattern can be tested against your block first.