Co-Located Housing Comes to Adelaide: What the Future Living Code Amendment Means for Your Block

General information for South Australian landowners only. This is not legal, planning, tax, financial or valuation advice. Route planning-law, title and by-law questions to a qualified SA property or planning lawyer, statutory planning strategy and design questions to a qualified planning consultant or urban designer, tax to your accountant, valuation to a registered valuer, feasibility or cost questions to a quantity surveyor (QS), and any site, tree or land-survey question to a suitably qualified surveyor or arborist. This article describes a reform that is now in effect — the Future Living Code Amendment was completed in two parts (Part 1 in May 2025, Part 2 in September 2025) and is enacted policy in the Planning and Design Code — but scope and figures still vary by parcel: any status, scope, date or figure can be re-indexed or republished by the relevant authority, so confirm the live position, and whether your particular block is in scope, with PlanSA and your own advisers before you rely on it.

For a long time, owners of a well-loved character house in an established Adelaide suburb have felt they had only two honest options: keep the house exactly as it is, or sell to a builder for a knock-down-rebuild. The Future Living Code Amendment now opens a third door — a "co-located housing" pathway that, where it applies, lets an owner keep the original home and add one or more additional homes on the same allotment, with shared garden space held under community title. If that pathway reaches your block, it changes the menu of things you can consider doing with it. This article is written to help you understand what the reform now allows, what questions to ask, and how it compares to the subdivision path you may already half-know — without pretending the parcel-specific detail is settled for your particular block.

Cyberate PM is engaged by the owner. We are not paid a commission on a sale, and we are not the planning authority that decides your case. On a reform this new, that distinction matters: the people who confirm whether your block is in scope, and the people who design and lawfully assess a co-located proposal, are not the same people trying to sell you a service. Our role is coordination — helping you commission the right advisers and run the process on your behalf. We coordinate; we don't give the advice.

What the Future Living Code Amendment is trying to change

At a high level, the idea behind co-located housing is to allow a bit more housing diversity in established, often character, suburbs without the wholesale demolition that a knock-down-rebuild involves. Rather than rezoning every block, current PlanSA and Department for Environment and Water (DEW) material frames it as a new planning pathway — a way of doing something on a block that the ordinary rules would not otherwise contemplate, subject to specific design expectations.

The Future Living Code Amendment is now enacted policy in the Planning and Design Code, and per PlanSA the final decision has been made — co-located housing development applications can now be submitted and accepted for assessment. It was completed in two parts: Part 1 (May 2025) introduced the new land-use definitions, the "Co-located Housing Overlay" and related policy changes to the Established Neighbourhood Zone; Part 2 (September 2025) confirmed which Established Neighbourhood Zones the Overlay actually applies to, with each of the six participating councils confirming their areas. So this is enacted law, not a concept that might pass — though whether the mechanism reaches your particular block, and the exact design parameters, are still the kind of thing to confirm on the live PlanSA page. If you want to understand how a change like this is made in the first place, our guide to how a Code Amendment rezones land in SA explains the instrument behind it.

What "co-located housing" means — and how it differs from a granny flat or a subdivision

The working idea, as the reform is described, is a retained existing home plus one or more additional homes sharing a common garden or open space — with the additional homes intended to be genuine homes rather than an ancillary structure subordinate to the main house. That framing is what distinguishes it, at least in concept, from a granny flat: a granny flat is typically ancillary to the primary dwelling, whereas co-located housing is described around homes of more similar standing sharing a site.

It also differs from the subdivision you may already be picturing. A conventional land division splits a block into separate, individually titled parcels, each usually with its own private land. Co-located housing, as described, leans the other way — shared open space held in common rather than carved up. The nearest familiar form to hold it against is a dual occupancy in Adelaide, and even that is not a clean match. The precise land-use definition and how it sits against these other forms is something your planner and council can confirm against the current Code; don't treat any summary, including this one, as the statutory wording.

Is your block in scope? Policy adopted is not the same as your street being mapped

This is the single most important question for an owner, and it is one to ask rather than one this article can answer. The reform is enacted, and Part 2 (September 2025) confirmed which Established Neighbourhood Zones the Co-located Housing Overlay applies to — but that mapping operates at the area level, so whether your particular allotment actually sits inside the overlay is a separate matter to confirm. So the honest question is not "is my council participating?" but "is my particular allotment inside the mapped overlay?"

Even where a council area is associated with the reform, that does not mean every block within it is automatically eligible. The way to find out is to check the mapped overlay on PlanSA and to have a pre-lodgement conversation with your council, rather than to read eligibility into a council's name appearing on a list. For readers whose block sits in one of the associated areas, a local-context primer such as our Burnside Council planning guide is a useful starting point for the conversation you then have with the council itself — but whether your block is actually in scope is for PlanSA and your council to confirm, not the guide: the overlay map can indicate whether your area is covered, while eligibility and the requirements that apply are for the authority and a suitably qualified planner to confirm.

Keep-the-house versus knock-down-rebuild: reframing the owner's options

The reason this reform is interesting to owners is that it reframes the choice. For years, an owner of an established or character home who wanted to "do something" with the land often felt the only development option was to sell for demolition. If co-located housing reaches your block, retaining the original house while adding homes becomes a possibility to investigate — an alternative to a knock-down-rebuild, not automatically a better or cheaper one.

That is deliberately not a cost comparison. Whether retaining makes sense for you, versus subdivision or a knock-down-rebuild, depends on numbers that belong in a proper feasibility, prepared by a QS against your actual site, not on any generalisation here. What an owner can usefully do at this stage is treat co-located housing as one more option on the table and test it honestly against the others, rather than assuming either that it is the answer or that it is a gimmick.

Community title and shared space: what ownership would actually look like

If the additional homes are to be separately sellable while the garden is shared, some form of common ownership has to hold that shared space together. Community title is the mechanism usually described for this kind of arrangement — separately owned homes over land held in common, with a set of by-laws governing the shared parts and how they are managed over time.

Ownership like that carries real, ongoing consequences: how the common area is maintained, how decisions get made, what the by-laws allow and restrict, and what a future buyer takes on. Those are conveyancing and title questions for your solicitor, not something to assume from an article. Our explainer on Torrens versus community title in SA is a useful orientation before that conversation, but confirm how any community-title and by-law mechanics would actually apply to a co-located proposal with your own lawyer, and treat the title mechanics as detail to check against a primary source.

What a character or heritage block owner should weigh

Part of the reform's policy is to allow additional homes while respecting streetscape and character — which is precisely why character and heritage blocks are in the conversation. That policy, though, comes with things to investigate rather than assume. On many established blocks, mature trees are a live planning consideration, and regulated or significant trees can materially shape what siting is possible, which is why they are worth checking early with an arborist and your council.

Beyond trees, there are the ordinary neighbour-amenity questions any added density raises: overlooking and privacy, overshadowing, access and parking, and how a new home reads against the existing streetscape. The reform has specific design expectations attached — favouring shared over purely private open space, and setting parameters around siting and form — but the specifics are for your designer and council pre-lodgement to confirm against the current Code, not for this article to quantify. Frame all of it as "things to investigate with your council and a suitably qualified designer," because the parcel-specific design detail is still for the authority and your designer to confirm — that is the honest posture.

From idea to approval: the process an owner would face

Even where co-located housing applies, it still sits inside the ordinary SA planning and development-application world. In broad terms that means an early pre-lodgement conversation with your council to understand what the overlay allows for your block, a design that meets the applicable expectations, and a development application assessed under the rules that apply. That broadly resembles the ordinary SA approval pathway once you know your block is in scope, but the assessment pathway that actually applies to a co-located proposal is for your council and planning advisers to confirm, rather than something to assume runs the same way as any other development application.

The practical point for an owner is sequencing. Because whether your block is in scope, and the design expectations that apply, are still things to confirm rather than assume, the sensible early spend is on the questions that can stop the project cheaply — is my block actually in the mapped overlay, and what does the current Code expect of a co-located design here — before the larger design and technical investment. Treat every stage as a gate, and get the scope question answered first.

How Cyberate PM handles this on your project

Cyberate PM is a development manager and owner-side consultant. We are not a planning authority, a planning consultant, a lawyer, a surveyor, a valuer, an arborist or a QS, and we do not decide whether your block is in scope, prepare the design, give planning-law or title advice, run a valuation, or perform QS costings. Even with the reform now in effect, that boundary is the point: the substantive judgements belong to your licensed advisers, and our job is to coordinate them.

In practice, that means helping you commission a suitably qualified planner to confirm — against the current PlanSA overlay and a council pre-lodgement conversation — whether co-located housing actually reaches your block, before you spend on design. It means sequencing the designer, surveyor, arborist and solicitor so their inputs arrive in the right order and hold together, and keeping your solicitor and accountant across the community-title and tax questions that a co-located structure raises. We coordinate and sequence adviser-supplied inputs; we do not perform the tax, valuation, QS-costing, legal or planning work ourselves. Engaging us is optional, not required — plenty of owners run this with their own advisers directly. Where an owner does want a single point of coordination, that is what our owner-side development consultancy in Adelaide provides.

Frequently asked questions

Is co-located housing available on my block right now? The Future Living Code Amendment is now in effect — Part 1 (May 2025) and Part 2 (September 2025) are complete, and per PlanSA co-located housing applications can now be submitted and accepted for assessment. But whether the Co-located Housing Overlay reaches your particular allotment is still the question to confirm, not assume. Check the mapped overlay on PlanSA and have a pre-lodgement conversation with your council to find out whether your particular block is in scope.

Is this the same as building a granny flat behind my house? As described, no. A granny flat is typically ancillary to the main dwelling, whereas co-located housing is framed around additional homes of more similar standing sharing a site, often over common open space. The precise definition and how it applies is for your planner and council to confirm against the current Code.

Do I have to knock down my existing house? The reform is built around retaining the original home rather than demolishing it — that is much of its point. Whether retention works on your specific block, and what a co-located design would need to look like, is a design and planning question for a suitably qualified designer and your council, not something to read as guaranteed from a summary.

How does the shared garden get owned and managed? Community title is the mechanism usually described — separately owned homes over land held in common, governed by by-laws. The ongoing ownership, maintenance and by-law consequences are conveyancing questions for your solicitor. Our Torrens-versus-community-title explainer is a useful orientation, but confirm the specifics with your own lawyer.

Will co-located housing be cheaper or more profitable than subdividing? There is no honest general answer, and this article deliberately doesn't give a figure. Whether retaining and adding homes stacks up against subdivision or a knock-down-rebuild depends on your actual site and a proper feasibility prepared by a QS. Treat it as one option to test, not a foregone conclusion.

Can I pursue this without selling to a developer? The reform is pitched around owner retention, so keeping control of your own block is part of the idea. That does not mean it is simple, and it does not mean you need Cyberate PM. You will need your own advisers either way; a development manager is an optional way to coordinate them, not a requirement.

Co-located housing is now an enacted option — per PlanSA the final decision has been made and applications can be submitted — and the most useful early step is simply finding out whether it reaches your block at all, before any design money is committed. If you would like a coordinated, owner-side read on where your block stands and which advisers to bring in first, Book a free consult.