Pattern Book Semis 01: the NSW dual occupancy design explained

There are two versions of the design. Inside a low and mid rise (LMR) housing area the minimum lot is 12 metres wide and 450 square metres. Everywhere else in NSW the minimum lot is 15 metres wide and 565 square metres, 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.

Both base patterns are drawn on a lot 37.5 metres deep. The building is 23.04 metres deep including the 1.5 metre porches at the front and rear, set back 6 metres from the street with 8.46 metres left as rear garden. Each home is 4.8 metres wide and the pair shares one party wall.

The pattern suits mid block, corner and rear lane lots. On a corner lot the secondary street setback is at least 2 metres, parking moves to the rear and driveways sit at least 6 metres from the intersection. On a rear lane lot parking can come off the lane, which lets the front setback drop to 4.5 metres. All 12 official siting and orientation examples are below, six for LMR housing areas and six for the rest of NSW.

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.

A dual occupancy under this pattern is permitted wherever dual occupancy development 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 450 square metre base pattern. Every other location uses the 565 square metre base pattern. 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.

Each home enters through a deep covered porch into a hall that runs the length of the plan. At the front is a flexible room that can be a living space with the laundry and WC behind it, a bedroom with an ensuite, a carport or an enclosed garage. Behind that sits the kitchen with the central stair, then the dining and living room, which opens through a covered area onto the private rear garden.

The double height void above the kitchen is the organising move of the plan. High windows in it purge heat, bring light down into the centre of the house and let warm air out, and the upstairs hall looks into it. Upstairs each home has three bedrooms and a three way bathroom with a separate WC, a shower and bath room and a vanity.

The roof is a single hipped form over both homes with 600 millimetre eaves and a minimum 7 degree fall, sized to carry a solar array. A rainwater tank collects roof water for the garden and can be plumbed to toilets and the washing machine. Both homes are all electric with ceiling fans and provision for a heat pump hot water unit.

The complete drawing sequence below covers the site plan, ground floor, first floor and roof for both the LMR and the non LMR base patterns. The version for sites outside LMR housing areas uses the extra lot width for a carport under one home and for wider living and dining rooms with pop out windows.

These are the figures published for the base pattern. Both homes are the same size, and the dual occupancy can be subdivided under Torrens title so each home has its own lot.

The official design page publishes 166 square metres per home. The pattern also publishes base floor space ratios of 0.71:1 in an LMR housing area and 0.59:1 elsewhere, so on a minimum lot the pair adds up to about 320 square metres in an LMR housing area and about 333 square metres on the wider lot used everywhere else. Treat 166 square metres as the upper figure and confirm the area for your chosen adaptations from the licensed drawings.

The pattern is a fixed design with a defined set of options rather than a starting sketch. What stays fixed: the facade materials and their arrangement, the timber windows and shutters, the hipped roof with its deep eaves and set angle, the double height void over the kitchen and stair, and the 1.5 metre porches front and rear.

What you can choose: the front room layout (flexible room with laundry and WC, bedroom with ensuite, undercover carport or enclosed garage), the upstairs bathroom layout (three way bathroom, separate ensuite and bathroom, or a smaller bathroom with a study), added living and dining width on a wider lot, a skylight over the void when the kitchen windows face south, level changes for a sloping site, and one of four material palettes.

The two homes are chosen separately, so one can take a garage while the other keeps a flexible room. No more than one of the two homes may have an enclosed garage. Every option you select has to be declared in the design verification statement lodged with the application, and you cannot modify an option beyond the published design.

All four palettes share a durable painted brick base to the ground floor and corrugated steel above, with the first floor projecting over the ground floor to shade the windows. The differences are the colour of the upper cladding and metalwork and whether the window suites and shutters are painted or left as natural timber.

The pattern documents also note that the upper level can be finished in fibre cement sheeting instead of corrugated steel. 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.

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 can absorb a fall of up to 1.35 metres front to back and 1.2 metres side to side using internal level changes, and Dudils screens slope from the national elevation model, which is indicative and not a survey. A steeper site puts the pattern out of reach.

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.

Outside LMR housing areas the lot has to satisfy your council's minimum lot size for a dual occupancy as well as the 565 square metre pattern minimum, and the front setback may have to match the average of the two nearest houses. Sites 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 proposed building envelope 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 Semis 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.

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, with neighbours notified at least 7 days before the certificate can be issued, against 20 days and 14 days for ordinary 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 and a stormwater design. 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.