Can you build SDA in a heritage conservation area?

Yes. A heritage conservation area protects the character of a street or a precinct, not the age of every building in it, and new homes are built inside conservation areas across Sydney and regional New South Wales.

What changes is the test the design has to pass. A new SDA dwelling there has to belong to the street as well as satisfy the SDA Design Standard, and the two are resolved together.

What a heritage conservation area is

Each council's local environmental plan maps its heritage items and its heritage conservation areas. A heritage item is a single place of significance. A conservation area is a group of buildings, streets and gardens whose value lies in how they read together.

Places of state significance sit on the State Heritage Register under the Heritage Act 1977, which is a separate layer again.

The planning controls

Clause 5.10 of the standard local environmental plan sets the heritage controls. Building a new dwelling in a conservation area, or demolishing an existing building there, needs development consent, and the council has to consider how the proposal affects the heritage significance of the area.

The council can ask for a heritage management document before it decides, which on most projects is a heritage impact statement prepared by a heritage consultant. The council's development control plan then sets out what the street expects of setbacks, roof forms, materials, front fences and where a car is parked.

Heritage controls also narrow the complying development options, so the pathway is confirmed before design starts. The options are set out in planning pathways for special-use accommodation in NSW, and a pre-lodgement meeting with council is the place to test the approach.

What the street asks of the design

A conservation area does not ask for a copy of an old house. Councils look for a new building that respects the scale, rhythm and setbacks of its neighbours and is honest about being new.

That means a roof form that sits comfortably with the street, a front setback in line with the houses either side, and materials drawn from the area, which across much of Sydney is face brick. A module clad in brick reads as a permanent home, and that is what the street expects. Cladding choices are covered in external cladding selection and durability.

Level access behind a heritage front

The accessibility does not have to be announced to the street. Level entry, a covered arrival point and wide paths sit inside the site, where they serve the residents and stay out of the streetscape.

Where an existing cottage is kept, a new accessible dwelling can sit behind it. The cottage keeps its place on the street, and the new home behind it is built to the accessible standard.

The constraint as the starting point

Our design rule is to take the most demanding constraint and make it the hero. In a conservation area the street is that constraint, so the design starts with it instead of working around it at the end.

That suits a modular build. The heritage approach is settled through design and approval, the modules are fabricated to the approved design while the site is prepared, and the installation is a short period of work in the street. How a module reaches an established street is set out in modular construction on a Sydney infill site.

MADEmodular / MADEbetter.

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