Overview
Townhomes in Config lets you represent multi-unit buildings — such as townhome communities — within Higharc's location hierarchy. You can attach individual townhome unit plans to lots and maps and configure options at either the whole-building or per-unit level. These settings are visible across Higharc Studio, Config, and Showroom once the building structure is in place.
This article covers three setup areas: creating the building level in your location hierarchy, attaching a building plan and mapping lots to units, and configuring whole-building versus per-unit options.
Creating a Dedicated Multi-Unit Level in the Location Hierarchy
Before you can work with townhome buildings in Config, you need to add a Multi-Unit level to your location hierarchy. This lets a community contain buildings, with each building being made up of individual units that can be assigned to lots. Higharc Studio, Config, and Showroom all read this hierarchy, so the same building structure is visible across the platform.
This step is required before any building-level workflows will function.
In your Builder Dashboard, under Account Settings, click on 'Location Settings' and enable 'Multi-Unit'. Note: Multi-unit location levels require permission and must be enabled by an account admin.
Next, under 'Locations' either create a new Division/Community/Phase, or add a sub-location within an existing Division/Community/Phase.
After completing the initial location setup, add a new 'Multi-Unit' building as a sub-location within the Community/Phase.
You can now see the Multi-Unit Building Location displayed in both the sidebar and top navigation bar.
Adding a Multi-Unit Plan and Assigning Lots to Units
Once the Multi-Unit sub-location has been created, you can attach a Home Plan to the building and map lots to individual reporting units. Each lot ties directly to a specific unit, so availability and sold/held status track at the unit level. Lot metadata, such as price, status, and similar fields, follows the same pattern as single-family lots, so your existing inventory workflow extends to townhomes.
Note: Before adding a Multi-Unit Plan to your building, it's recommended to add your lots first. Keep in mind that these are just the lots contained within your building. For example, a duplex building will contain 2 lots.
Start by creating a new lot list.
Enter the lot count (for just number of units in this specific building) and starting lot number (optional).
Under the Multi-Unit Plan tab, add a new plan.
Choose a plan from the list of available Multi-Unit Plans.
Assign each lot to the appropriate unit.
Continue to configure lot availability and other design or operational settings as desired.
Optional: Add a map at the Community level and validate that only multi-unit buildings that have been created and have lots and plans associated with them will show as available and configurable.
Options: Whole-Building vs Per-Unit
The option scheme for a building separates choices that apply to the whole building from choices scoped to a single unit. Whole-building options propagate to every unit automatically; per-unit options let you override or customize selections for one unit without affecting others. Setting options at the correct level prevents unintended changes when a building-wide decision is made.
Whole Building Options
With the building selected, navigate to the ‘Multi-Unit Plan’ tab.
Select the desired home plan to open the building-level Option Template.
Option settings enabled or disabled at the whole-building level will apply downstream across all units.
Per-Unit Options
There are two methods for accessing the Option Template settings for a specific unit.
Method 1 - Under the ‘Lots’ tab, click the ellipses (three dots) next to the unit lot/unit you want to configure and choose ‘Option Templates’ and select the home plan assigned to that lot.
Method 2 - Within the ‘Multi-Unit Plan’ tab, and with a specific plan selected, click on the drop down at the top to select and configure a specific lot mapped to this home plan.
Regardless of the method used to access the per-unit Option Template, you can now set per-unit options to override or customize unit-specific choices.
