Is Your New Home in Your Backyard?

Do you love where you live but not what you live in, anymore?

Maybe you have thought about developing your backyard to finance a renovation to your home. With the funds available, your home can be beautifully redesigned to be even better than when you had ‘more space’

Or what about selling your home and moving INTO your backyard! This is becoming popular as government policies encourage urban infill as a way to stop our cities encroaching on ever more precious green space.

Brodecky House by Atlas Architects is a new house built in the backyard of the owner’s original home which she was able to sell instead of demolishing. The new house has an emphasis on accessible design, considering for the future.

Architect Michelle Blakeley cautions against trying to fit ‘as much house on the block’ as possible when subdividing. Michelle reminds us of the sleepouts encased in louvres and the eat-in kitchens of post war built houses and advocates for more compact homes that will still provide quality, comfort and joyful living, with a more sustainable impact.

Jimmy’s House, by MJA Studio is in urban infill development that makes use of the neighboring park, internal courtyards and a rooftop terrace for outdoor spaces to relax in. As a result, the ‘house behind a house’ has more garden spaces than the original footprint.

Kane Hutchinson from Result Developments helps people considering developing their house sites. As a building broker with extensive experience, he recommends a quick phone call to his company to check the position of your local council on your block’s suitability. He advises that there can be differences in zoning even between opposite sides of the same street. If suitable, Kane can organise all the documentation needed to put your project right through to council approval.

To accomodate visitors outside your home, you may consider building a self contained apartment, such as Studio Drifter in Byron Bay. May councils now have special approval processes for buildings such as these. They have become popular for adult children and relatives outside the immediate family. Paying guests are an option if allowed in your area and an increasingly design savvy clientele will appreciate the thought that goes into a beautiful but compact dwelling.