PlanBE was engaged to prepare and manage the Development Application for a detached dual occupancy on a 9,122 m² rural residential lot in Murrumbateman, within the Yass Valley Council area.

The proposal combines a contemporary four bedroom family home with a swimming pool and a separate two bedroom cottage, both with garages. The site has no town water or sewer, so each dwelling also needed its own rainwater supply, and the lot needed an on-site sewage management system.

The Challenge

Building two homes on an unsewered rural lot means Council has to be satisfied on several fronts at once, before it will look at the architecture:

• An on-site wastewater system sized to treat and dispose of effluent from both dwellings, with the right buffers to boundaries, buildings, the pool and water tanks

• Enough rainwater storage for both drinking water and firefighting

• Bushfire protection, with the site mapped as bushfire prone land

• Visual privacy for the neighbouring dwelling on the western boundary

The owners also wanted to build over time rather than all at once, so the approval had to allow the project to go ahead in stages.

Planning Approach

PlanBE coordinated the application and a site and soil assessment for on-site effluent disposal. The proposal was assessed against the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the relevant Yass Valley planning controls.

The soil assessment found clay subsoils that couldn't take effluent deep in the ground. It recommended an aerated wastewater treatment system with shallow irrigation over a dedicated 650 m² area, sized for both dwellings. This showed Council that the lot could comfortably support two homes.

To address the neighbouring dwelling, a revised landscaping plan set out a dense privacy screen along the western boundary, made up of large evergreen trees and a continuous hedge.

The consent was structured in two stages:

• Stage 1: the two bedroom cottage, on-site sewage management system and rainwater tank

• Stage 2: the four bedroom dwelling, swimming pool and a second rainwater tank

This lets the owners build the cottage and the essential site services first, live on the property, and then move on to the main home when they're ready.

Design and Sustainability

Both dwellings sit comfortably on the gently sloping site. The main home steps down to a garage level and opens onto a covered alfresco area and pool deck.

Both homes easily beat their BASIX sustainability targets. Each has its own 50,000 litre rainwater tank connected to indoor taps, the laundry and hot water, and the cottage scored well above its energy target. Both homes will be built to the BAL-12.5 bushfire construction standard.

Outcome

Development consent was granted for the staged dual occupancy, including approvals for the water, sewerage, stormwater and wastewater works.

This project shows how careful staging and early site investigation can give rural landowners a clear, flexible path to building more than one home on their land, at a pace that suits their budget and their family.