R Codes

What R these things? R Codes and what they mean.

You might hear the term R Codes thrown around when you’re looking to build on new land, subdivide or develop an existing property, but what are they?

The City of Swan explains that the Residential Design Codes, or more commonly called the “R-Codes”, provide a comprehensive basis for local governments to control residential development.

They generally apply to residential zones throughout Western Australia. They also specify the requirements for development control and minimise the need for separate planning policies for residential development.

So how does this effect you?

R Codes are used to help cities, towns and local suburbs control their population growth by regulating the number and types of dwellings that can be built in any one area. Simply put, the code stipulates how may dwellings can go on a 10,000m2 (1-hectare) piece of land. It also works out the minimum and average size of each block on that land.

An example of this would be a R20 block, this means that you can have up to 20 dwellings per hectare of land, meaning the minimum site size would be 350m2 with and average site size of 450m2. These codes are always changing and shifting so it is a good idea to double check when looking at land. Most land developers will have these detail on their website so have a look there too.

The department of Planning, Lands and Heritage have a full list of codes and their meaning on their website if you wanted to find out more. As mentioned before however, these are always changing so make sure you ask the question when looking for land.