History repeats with re-birth of the terrace home

What’s old is new again as urban designers look to the past to solve a modern challenge in Queensland’s booming housing markets.

Leading consultancy group RPS have suggested that individually designed freehold terrace homes were getting set to be the future of compact housing in Australia.

RPS Regional Technical Director of Urban Design Peter Egerton said people looking for affordable, low-maintenance homes in prime lifestyle areas such as the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast were finding the new innovations in compact housing ticked all the boxes.

The rear laneways of the modern terrace lots are the same dimensions as those of days gone by but instead of being used by dunny carts, these days they provide vehicle access to rear-facing garages. This allows increased vehicle parking or storage opportunities without affecting the aesthetic appeal of the home’s street front.

“The terrace homes are essentially freestanding houses with a 50 millimetre gap in between and a high density easement over the whole boundary to take care of maintenance requirements,” Peter Egerton said.

RPS has been at the forefront of creating game-changing solutions in compact housing for the past decade, working as the urban designer on projects that have pioneered the new concepts in terrace allotments such as Fitzgibbon Chase on Brisbane’s northside, CityVillage Terraces at Robina and Sunshine Cove on the Sunshine Coast.

Chardan Development Group’s Sunshine Cove at Maroochydore has recently received national kudos for its innovation in residential terrace allotments, taking out the Residential Development award at the 2016 UDIA National Awards for Excellence. 

Sunshine Cove’s first residential precinct was launched in 2010 and creativity and innovation were hallmarks of the project from the start.