Pattern Book Small Lot Apartments 04: the NSW mid block apartment design explained

This pattern is for a mid block infill lot with one primary street frontage. It cannot be used on a corner lot, and battle axe lots are excluded. The smallest lot that works is 16.5 metres wide and 600 square metres, with lot width measured at the front building line.

There are three lot size adaptations and your lot decides which one you can use. Breezy base, the base pattern, needs at least 20.4 metres of width and 33.7 to 40.6 metres of depth. Breezy long needs at least 19.4 metres of width and 47 to 53 metres of depth. Breezy thin, the narrowest, needs at least 16.5 metres of width and 36.4 to 42.4 metres of depth. Across the three the pattern covers lots of 600 to 1,028 square metres. Where a lot is longer than the minimum, the extra length goes to the 6 metre rear landscaped setback; where it is wider, the extra width is preferably added to the 3 metre side setback.

The five siting examples below are the official urban arrangements: a lot wider than the minimum with low scale neighbours, a lot beside a similar scale five storey neighbour, a lot turned 180 degrees to address the opposite street, and two lots with an angled rear boundary, one of them sloping and one mirrored. Check yours against them before assuming a fit. If you choose the red brick palette, add 200 millimetres to both the minimum lot width and the minimum lot length, because that adaptation uses 400 millimetre external walls instead of 300.

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 flood prone or bush fire prone. Even the lowest bush fire rating of BAL 12.5 is not compliant. Heritage items and conservation areas, landslip risk land, land affected by a registered easement, coastal hazard land, foreshore land, unsewered land and battle axe lots do not comply either.

The mid rise patterns only apply in the areas the NSW Government has opened up for more homes: low and mid rise (LMR) housing areas around selected town centres and stations, and transport oriented development (TOD) areas around selected railway and metro stations, where a residential flat building is permitted in the zone with consent. You can look these areas up on the NSW Planning Portal map, or type your address above and the lot finder checks them for you.

The pattern pathway does not apply on land the policy identifies as unsuitable. That includes bush fire prone land, certain high risk flood prone land, State and local heritage items, and heritage conservation areas.

Where the pattern applies, its development standards prevail over inconsistent local controls, so the lot size, height and setback numbers on this page hold even where a council plan or development control plan says otherwise. Landscape still has to be resolved on your own site against the NSW Housing Pattern Book Landscape design guide, including tree canopy, and any removal or pruning of significant trees needs council approval in the normal way.

The plan is a simple rectangle split into two halves front and back, with the breezy core between them. The core is covered but open to the outdoors, so the walk from the lift to your door is daylit and naturally ventilated, and it doubles as the place neighbours run into each other. Because the structure spans efficiently, the design fits five storeys largely inside a 17.5 metre height limit, which is the height a four storey building normally takes.

A typical floor holds four apartments around the core: a studio of 39 square metres, a one bedroom of 53, a two bedroom of 71 and a three bedroom of 110, all with balconies and cross ventilation. The top floor drops the studio and uses that corner for the heat pump plant and condensers instead, so it holds three apartments. On the ground floor the answer depends on parking: with a basement, the ground floor still fits a one bedroom apartment and a studio alongside the entry, two communal rooms, the bin store, an accessible toilet and secure parking for nine bikes. With on grade parking, the cars take that space and the ground floor holds no apartments at all, which is one of the reasons the published yield is a range rather than a number.

The basement, where you build one, is a small one: six car spaces with electric vehicle charging to all of them, parking for thirteen e bikes, the fire pump, main switch room, comms, hydraulic plant, bulky waste, and the combined rainwater and on site detention tank under the driveway.

The roof is a working roof rather than a communal terrace. It carries about 224 square metres of solar panels in three arrays against a minimum requirement of 75 square metres plus an allowance for conditioned communal space, with the lift shaft and fire stair capped in concrete and the rooftop plant screened below. Communal open space and deep soil sit on the ground instead: on the 798 square metre site the area calculations are drawn for, the pattern achieves 200 square metres of communal open space (25 per cent), 213 square metres of deep soil (27 per cent against a 7 per cent target) and 213 square metres of tree canopy with room for 8 to 12 trees.

These are the internal areas of the base pattern, with ceilings of at least 2.7 metres in habitable rooms. Every apartment has a balcony or private open space, and every apartment achieves cross ventilation in line with the Apartment Design Guide. The apartment types are interchangeable, so the mix on any given floor can be reshuffled within the pattern rules: the base pattern alone publishes nineteen mix adaptations, the long version sixteen and the thin version thirteen.

The pattern is a kit with strict rules rather than one fixed building. What you can change: the lot size adaptation (Breezy base, Breezy long or Breezy thin), the apartment mix within the published cuisenaire of options, four or five storeys, basement or on grade parking, bedroom layouts inside some apartment types, the awning colour, and whether there is a front fence (no fence is preferred, a palisade fence is allowed). The whole plan can also be mirrored.

What stays fixed: the minimum setbacks and the landscape amenity they create, the design and layout of the breezy core, the facade design with its two material options and its window sizes and positions, the provision of awnings, the tartan structural grid the spatial layout is built on, and the storey height that lets five levels fit under 17.5 metres. Entries to the building, to each apartment and onto balconies are all set by the pattern and cannot be moved. Every change, even one inside the allowed range, has to be declared in the design verification statement lodged with the application.

Ground can move a little too. The pattern accepts a fall of up to 1 in 20 along the length of the site, which is 2 metres on the base pattern, and up to 1 in 40 across the width, which is 0.6 metres, with one step allowed inside the 3 metre landscaped setback. Floors stay flat, because level access is a design principle, so the pattern cannot be turned into a split level building. On a sloping site the drawings show small parts of the roof pushing above the 17.5 metre limit, dimensioned at 200 to 1,075 millimetres, which is worth checking early with your consent authority.

There are two palettes and they change the character of the building completely. Palette A is a lightweight white facade: pre grooved board in magnesium oxide, preferred because it carries lower embodied energy, or compressed fibre cement, set out with aligned joints and finished in a neutral white paint, with yellow awnings and matching yellow balcony soffits. Palette B is external red brick in stack bond, recycled brick preferred, with pink awnings and soffits.

Both palettes share the same supporting materials: silver natural anodised, thermally broken, double glazed window and door frames, steel or aluminium balustrades with circular rods at 100 millimetre centres, non slip balcony paving with flush thresholds so every threshold is step free, and galvanised metal roofing, gutters and downpipes. One practical catch with the brick option: it needs 400 millimetre external walls rather than the 300 millimetres of the base pattern, so you have to add 200 millimetres to both the minimum lot width and the minimum lot length before you can use it.

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 over it or buying the pattern licence, check the current State and council mapping and get professional advice.

Rule out the exclusions first. The pattern does not comply 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, a registered easement that runs through the proposed building area, coastal hazard land, foreshore land, unsewered land, corner lots and battle axe lots all need to be ruled out as well. Get a survey and check the contours: the maximum fall is 2 metres along the site and 0.6 metres across it, and Dudils screens slope from the national elevation model, which is indicative and not a survey.

Then check the things that quietly change the numbers. On grade parking removes the two ground floor apartments, so the yield you assume needs to match the parking you build. The red brick palette needs 200 millimetres more lot width and length. The driveway crossing has to work around street trees, power poles and bus shelters, and removing any of those needs council approval. A substation kiosk may be required. On a sloping site parts of the roof are drawn above the 17.5 metre height limit, and rooftop plant, waste vehicle access and fire brigade access all need early coordination.

Overshadowing is the big one for neighbours. Neighbouring sites must keep at least 3 hours of sun to half their private open space between 9am and 3pm on 21 June, evidenced with shadow diagrams in the application, and a block north of existing houses can easily cast shadow south. A similar scale five storey neighbour can also push your own apartments below the solar access test. We recommend asking Good Architect to undertake a site feasibility study before buying the land, taking an option or buying the pattern licence, so the constraints and the likely yield can be tested together.

These are the numeric controls specific to this pattern. They sit in Chapter 7 of the Housing SEPP and prevail over inconsistent local controls where the pattern applies.

Using the pattern starts with the NSW Government pattern licence. The published standard price is licence from $15,000 per lot. When we checked the official shop on 6 August 2026 it showed a subsidised price of $1,500 against $15,000, described as subsidised for the first 6 months, and marked sold out. Price and availability change, so check the shop yourself before you plan around a number.

The fee buys the full technical drawing package in PDF and DWG formats, technical guidance, an editable design verification statement and a unique identification number for your application. We strongly recommend a feasibility study before you buy the site or the licence, or take an option, to make sure the pattern works on the land.

You then engage a design team to adapt the drawings to your site. The design verification statement must be completed by an architect registered with the NSW Architects Registration Board, which you can confirm on the NSW Register of Architects, confirming every fixed and adapted feature of the pattern is carried into the application.

The application is lodged as a development application under Chapter 7 of the Housing SEPP. Reduced assessment removes the slow parts of a normal apartment application because the design questions are already answered: no reassessment against the Apartment Design Guide or the Schedule 9 design quality principles, and fewer requests for further information. You still have to demonstrate BASIX and NatHERS compliance, meet the ABCB Livable Housing Design Standard, and satisfy the landscape requirements.

Keep in mind the pattern drawings are indicative designs for a planning application, not construction drawings. After consent you still need full documentation to the National Construction Code, engineers, and for a Class 2 building a practitioner registered under the Design and Building Practitioners Act.