Before you embark on the journey of building your new home, it's important to familiarise yourself with the estate guidelines that are often put into place by developers and councils including:
- Fencing treatments
- Roofing material, and roof pitch (angle)
- Setbacks
- Driveway treatments
- Front landscaping
- Telecom and fibre optics (i.e. NBN, Opitcomm, etc.)
- Façade articulation, including colour and material guidelines
What are estate guidelines?
You’ve fallen in love with the house design and block of land for your family home and you are all set to build your dream design! While you might think it is up to you where the house design is positioned on the block and how it looks, there are specific regulations governed by building regulators, local council and developers that need to be adhered to. Below, we cover a guide on how to read estate or developer guidelines.
Why are there estate guidelines in place?
The main reason is for community cohesion; to preserve the masterplan of the community by detailing the façade options, colours or materials allowed to be used. This can extend to roofing, solar panels, driveway and fencing choices, as well as setbacks.
What is a setback?
You may have heard the term before – setbacks. This is the distance from your home's front, side and rear walls to the title boundary (the edges of your block). These setbacks avoid having properties too close together, creating a more pleasing and uniform streetscape or neighbourhood. Setbacks must comply with the building envelope or building regulations applicable to your lot.
These invisible property setbacks allow for welcomed breathing spaces between properties to ensure privacy, access, livability and consistency.
Setbacks also allow for better ventilation and light in your home, giving you access to natural light and better visual access.
Front setbacks
Depending on your neighbouring properties, front setbacks will vary. Generally, three scenarios may apply to lots 300m2 or greater:
- If there is an existing house on either side, which is known as a brownfield development, the front setback will be the average setback of the front wall of your neighbouring properties. Facade elements such as a porch or balcony are excluded when determining the front wall of an existing building.
Keep in mind that exceptions apply with some councils varying this under their applicable zones. For example, Monash Council requires a front setback of 7.6m regardless of the average. Your builder will guide you through this if it is applicable. - If there is an existing house on one side only, in a brownfield development, the front setback for your house will be the same as your neighbours.
While your new home may not be positioned more towards the front of the block, structures such as porches, verandas, pergolas, eaves, fascias, sun blinds or screens that have a maximum height of 3.6 metres above ground level may encroach up to 2.5 metres. This is an opportunity to amplify your front yard with a stunningly spacious garden! - If you have no neighbouring properties, known as greenfield development, then the setback will be 4 metres. Once your neighbours build, they too will have a setback of 4 metres.
Front setbacks will often be required to include a setback of generally 5.5 metres from the boundary to the garage, which allows for a single car parking space in front of the house. This makes the front area more user-friendly and ergonomic for the homeowner.
Note: Memorandum of Common Provisions (MCP) or building envelope plan may vary the above setbacks.
Overshadowing
Another important element with setbacks is to avoid any overshadowing. A new house must consider sunlight as a recreational private open space, like a backyard of an existing house.
As a general rule, adjoining neighbours must achieve 40sqm of unshadowed open space, with a minimum dimension of 3m, for 5 hours between the hours of 9am-3pm on September 22. Some exceptions exist with this rule, and we can help navigate that.
Everyone loves, and is entitled, to have their piece of sunshine! To preserve your neighbour’s access to the northern sun and if their habitable room window is within 3 metres of the boundary, you must set back your building 1 metre plus 0.6 metres for every metre higher than 3.6 metres. This continues until 6.9 metres – every metre after that, you must set back your house another metre. So planning is key from the very beginning.
Overlooking
If you have habitable room windows within 9 metres of the neighbouring property or window, you may be required to restrict your view to look into the adjacent property habitable room windows or private open space. The solution is simple. Frosted windows which are 75 per cent opaque do the trick. That way, everyone has their privacy without having to grow huge trees!
In exceptional circumstances, setbacks can be adjusted with council approval and consultation with your adjacent neighbours. There are also specific requirements for corner allotments or blocks facing a declared road, which your local council can advise on. Other considerations often include developer guidelines, proposed wall heights and overshadowing and overlooking requirements.
For a complete understanding of setbacks relating to your situation, ask our team or you can have a look at the Building Regulations 2018 on the VBA website.