The Developments service is Gidaya Group's offer to investors and developers building dual occupancy, townhouse and boutique projects. It runs from an early feasibility read through design input to delivery on site, so buildability and cost get tested before a concept turns into a commitment.

What does the Developments service actually cover?

Feasibility, design input and delivery. That's the shape of it.

The service starts before a design exists, when a site is still a shortlist and a set of assumptions about yield. Gidaya Group reads the site, the zoning and the numbers, names what's buildable and what isn't, then carries that thinking through design, pricing and construction so the finished project matches what the early numbers promised. It doesn't stop at a feasibility report and hand the risk back to you.

It's built around dual occupancy, townhouse and boutique work, the scale where a developer or investor is managing subdivision, staged trades and several dwellings without a large development company's resources sitting behind them. Project Turner, a high end development in Malvern East, and Project French, a development in Northcote, both sit in that bracket. Neither started with a fixed design. Both started with a site being tested against what it could actually carry.

The site itself sets most of the terms. A corner block with dual street frontage behaves nothing like a narrow inner suburban lot with single access, even at the same square metreage, because access, services and neighbouring walls decide what construction can actually do once excavators and trucks are involved. Reading that early is what separates a feasible project from a concept plan that only ever worked on paper.

Who is this service built for?

Three kinds of client, mostly.

Private investors doing their first dual occupancy, who want someone to say plainly whether the numbers hold up before they sign anything. Developers running townhouse or boutique projects who need a builder pricing buildability, not just a floor plan. And owners sitting on a block, working out whether a development is even the right use for the land they already have.

None of them need the same amount of support. A developer with a few projects behind them might want feasibility and pricing input, then hand delivery to their own site team. A first time investor usually wants the whole run, from the first sketch to the final inspection, carried by one team. Between them, the people doing this work carry around 25 years of collective experience across custom homes, developments and commercial fit outs, though that number only matters if the questions they ask about your site are the right ones.

What do you get in the first feasibility conversation?

Numbers before drawings.

A first conversation looks at the site, the zoning, the overlays and a realistic read on what the block can carry. Not the maximum theoretical yield. The number that will actually sell or lease well and still make sense once construction, consultants and holding costs are counted. Two blocks the same size can carry very different outcomes once the planning path and the physical site are applied together.

You leave that conversation with an honest view of whether the site is worth developing further, and where the risk sits if it is. Access for plant, shared walls, service capacity and staging usually decide more of the final cost than the floor plan does, so those get named early instead of surfacing once a contract is signed and trades are booked. If a soil test, a surveyor or a planner needs to weigh in before anything is settled, that gets said too, plainly, without dressing up an early guess as a final number.

What happens once a project moves from feasibility into delivery?

The site doesn't stay still once drawings start.

Once feasibility holds up, the same thinking carries into design and construction. Gidaya prices the drawings against the site conditions flagged early, not against a generic rate, so a change to a setback, a shared wall detail or a driveway crossover doesn't turn into a surprise variation after the trades are already booked. Staging gets planned around real site access, not around how the plan reads on paper.

Cost gets tracked against the numbers from the feasibility stage, so you can see early if a project is drifting and by how much. That matters more on a development than on a single home, because a shift on one dwelling's finish or footprint tends to repeat across every dwelling on the site. A duplicated service connection, a driveway crossover, a stormwater detention tank, small on one dwelling, expensive once it's multiplied across four or six.

What proof shows Gidaya can carry a development?

Two projects, mostly, and the habit behind them.

Project Turner is a high end luxury development in Malvern East, under Stonnington. Project French is a luxury sustainable development in Northcote, under Darebin. Both needed the same discipline this service is built on: read the site and the planning path first, then design and build to what the block and the market will actually support, not to what a concept plan assumed.

A gallery of finished dwellings tells you a builder can finish a job. It doesn't tell you how they'll handle a site with a tight access point, a party wall that needs solving before a permit is issued, or a stormwater condition that eats into the footprint you were counting on. That's usually a better question to ask a builder than how many projects they've completed.

Ask what they noticed about your site in the first ten minutes. Ask where they think the cost pressure will actually sit once trades are booked. A builder who talks about access, staging, shared services and drainage before finishes is usually the one who has carried a development from an early sketch through to settlement, not just built to someone else's finished design.

How does the service handle a project that changes shape along the way?

Developments move. Sites change hands, planning conditions shift, a lender wants a different presale position, or a buyer wants an extra bedroom in one dwelling and not the others.

The service is built to absorb that without losing the numbers the project was tested against in the first place. Every change gets checked against the feasibility it started from, so you can see what a change actually costs before agreeing to it, not after the invoice arrives. That's a different habit to building a single custom home, where a change usually touches one household's brief and stops there. On a development, a change to one dwelling can ripple through shared services, staging and the whole construction program, so it gets tested before it gets approved, not after.

Whether the plan is to hold the finished dwellings, sell off the plan, or sell on completion also changes what "finished" should mean for each one. A dwelling built to hold and lease long term can carry different finish and service decisions to one built to sell fast to an owner occupier, and that distinction is worth settling early, not once the slab is down.

How do you start with Gidaya?

Send the site.

The address or general location, the zoning if you know it, any planning advice already in hand, and what you're hoping to build: a dual occupancy, a set of townhouses or a boutique project. From there, the first conversation works out whether the numbers hold up and what the sensible next step looks like. You don't need a finished design to have that conversation. Most of the useful ones happen before one exists.

Browse Projects, read more about Gidaya Group, or send the site details through Contact. A feasibility conversation about a dual occupancy or a preconstruction review both start the same way, with the site, not the drawings.

Frequently asked questions

Does Gidaya Group work on developments?

Yes. Gidaya Group works on development projects, including dual occupancy, townhouse and boutique work, with experience through a high end luxury development in Malvern East and a luxury sustainable development in Northcote.

Is this service only for large scale developers?

No. It suits first time investors, private owners planning their first project, and developers already running several developments at once. The level of support flexes to what each client actually needs.

Can Gidaya help before a planning permit is issued?

Yes. Early feasibility work tests whether a site is worth developing further before design and permit costs are locked in.

What sizes of development does Gidaya work on?

Dual occupancy, townhouse and boutique developments from $500k across Melbourne and Victoria.

Does the service cover delivery, or just the early numbers?

Both. Some clients want feasibility and pricing only, then run delivery with their own team. Others want the project carried from the first read through to completion.

What happens if the site doesn't stack up?

That's still a useful outcome. Knowing a site doesn't support a development before money goes into drawings and permits beats finding out once they're paid for.

Send your development notes to Gidaya Group.

Written by the Gidaya Group team. Checked for accuracy before publishing. Updated 2026-07-08.