What Are the Secondary Dwelling Setbacks That Are Required?

If you are hoping to get approval for a secondary dwelling, setbacks are an important consideration. Do you know what setbacks are required?

To learn more about secondary dwelling setbacks click on the “Play” button below to watch now:

Or for those that prefer to read, here is a transcript of the video…

Okay, here’s what you need to know about secondary dwelling setbacks and how they may influence you. My name is Colin Fragar from Council Approval Group. I’m really excited to be able to share with you what may be a dry topic, but very influential in terms of the overall functionality of the dwelling that you’re about to create.

First Claim Your Free Guide

So if you’re thinking of building a secondary dwelling, it’s really important to get the right advice first and, hopefully, this illustrates that. What I’d like to do from the very outset is to make sure I offer you Your Ultimate Guide to Council Approval. It goes through a whole bunch of tips and tricks in here about secondary dwellings and things that you may not have thought of in the development process. So hopefully you enjoy that. Please put in your details and we’ll send you one in the post.

Secondary Dwelling Setback Tips

Okay, so just going across here to my notepad, I want to show you something which has been a personal impact on my wife and me because we’ve done these ourselves, as well as some of the things that we’ve experienced from our clients. So what are the setbacks? Now the setbacks can be defined, obviously, in terms of the front setbacks, I mentioned this the street. You’ve got the side setback, how far from the boundary can you build. And then the very important one, which is the rear setback, because that rear setback really influences how big this secondary dwelling can be. Also, another pivotal one is what is the minimum distance required between the principal dwelling and the secondary dwelling because if you don’t have enough setback space there, then often that can restrict the size.
So it’s really important that you don’t get this wrong because if you miss this it could be the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rental value over the life of this project.

Tip No. 1

Okay so here’s an advanced tip. If if you attach the secondary dwelling rather than having it detached, it may give you more space. What I mean, if you didn’t have enough space, because you’ve kind of come off a certain distance off the back of the house that may mean that your building envelope is restricted. But if you were to attach that secondary dwelling, there’s no setback requirement. That zero setback allows you to have a slightly bigger secondary dwelling, all things being held equal and presuming you still meet all the other requirements.

Tip No. 2

Also, it’s important to keep in mind when you are considering setbacks for secondary dwellings that it depends on 1) the zoning and 2) how large your property is because if you have a larger property there may be greater setbacks and different zonings have different setbacks. So it’s really important that you don’t get this wrong because if you miss this it could be the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rental value over the life of this project.

Another Free Resource For You

I really want you to get this right. If you slow down, take a step back, grab a copy of your guide, and also if you book in for a consultation with one of our team, this really will help to explore this. The consult may not answer the detailed questions on the exact setbacks, but what it will do is help to develop some parameters around the project that you’re trying to create and then draw out from that a clear next step for you so that you can move forward with confidence and know that you’re not going to waste money.

My name is Colin Fragar from Council Approval Group. I wish you every success as you embark on the secondary dwelling project.

Article Last Updated: 28 June 2024