In short
Rebuilding a detached house outside the Good Class Bungalow areas: the plot and storey rules, setbacks and site coverage, basements, pools and attics, and the decisions that shape a detached plan.
The most freedom a landed house offers
A detached house stands alone on its plot. There are no party walls to negotiate and no neighbour's structure to protect, which makes a bungalow rebuild the most straightforward of the landed rebuilds structurally, and the most open in design.
URA's minimum plot is 400 square metres and 10 metres wide. Outside the Good Class Bungalow areas, which have their own stricter rules (see Rebuilding a Good Class Bungalow), a detached house follows the storey control for its area and the envelope control for landed housing. These are URA's published guidelines as they stand; URA can depart from them case by case, so your qualified person confirms what applies to your plot before anything is drawn.
Setbacks and coverage shape the footprint
Freedom from shared walls comes with setbacks on every side. The front setback from the road and the side and rear setbacks from the boundaries, together with URA's site coverage limits, decide how much of the plot the house can occupy. The coverage guidelines were revised for applications submitted from 1 March 2025, so a feasibility study done before then may need updating.
Within that footprint, the envelope control decides the volume: the number of storeys and the height of each, rather than a fixed floor area. Floor area is what results from the envelope, which is why two bungalows on identical plots can end up very different sizes.
Basements, attics and pools
Since 2015, the envelope control has replaced the older rules on attic roof profiles and basement protrusions. An attic can now be designed without a sloping roof, and a basement can sit higher out of the ground, giving it daylight and air.
Of the three, the basement is the decision to make first. Excavation, retaining walls, waterproofing and the effect on the programme make it the single largest variable in a bungalow rebuild. A pool is simpler, but its position is fixed by setback rules, so it belongs in the site plan from the start rather than added once the house is drawn.
What a detached plan can do
With light available on all four sides, a bungalow can be planned around the garden instead of a light well: living spaces that open on two or three sides, a courtyard for privacy rather than daylight, and bedrooms placed for the view and the breeze. The decisions that matter most are made in the first weeks of design:
- Where the house sits on the plot, which fixes the garden, the driveway and the pool.
- The basement, or not, for the reasons above.
- The vertical spine, one stair and lift position that serves every floor.
- How the house meets the garden, which is what most owners remember about their house.
Before any of it, a feasibility study is how to find out what the plot will carry, and How long does a landed home take to build? sets out the programme.
Key takeaways
- URA's minimum for a bungalow is 400 sqm and 10 m wide; Good Class Bungalow areas have their own rules.
- No shared walls means more freedom, but setbacks on all four sides shape the footprint.
- Envelope control replaced the old attic and basement profile rules in 2015.
- Decide the basement early: it drives structure, cost and programme more than anything above ground.
Questions people ask
A bungalow is any detached house. A Good Class Bungalow is a detached house in one of the gazetted Good Class Bungalow areas, which needs a plot of at least 1,400 square metres and follows stricter planning parameters.
