Building lesson # 3 - Getting through the evil that is council planning permission

"Getting through council is a wonderful, learning experience designed to assist the rate payer ensure that their project is sustainable in every way"......said no one ever!

Getting through council in Melbourne is a necessary evil. Don't expect logic or fairness or you will be sorely disappointed.  Every council is different, as is every town planner.  If you happen to get a town planner with a God complex, then buckle up, you are in for a bumpy ride.

So if I was going to build all over again, what would I do differently?  Here's a list which may help you navigate your own experience with the devil incarnate, oh excuse me, also known as your local council town planner.

1.  Know your overlays and your block of land - this is as easy as logging on to Land Victoria for those of us living in Victoria.  Other Australian states have similar websites you can use.  Type in the address of your block and voila...the planning overlays affecting your title will be listed.  Best to jot these down, you will need them.  You can also get this information from your section 32, however if you have had your block as long as we have and the section 32 is in a file somewhere under your house, then Land Victoria is the way to go.

2.  Visit the devil online - simply go to your local council's web address.  Search on their planning descriptions.  For our council, all the various planning overlays were contained in one 1000 page document, but before you fear death by legislation, you only need to refer to those overlays which affect you, as such, the reading for us was a mere 100 pages or so.  One hundred pages seems a lot, however it is imperative that you understand what you can and can't do, on the bright side, you will have the best few weeks' sleep of your life!  For us, knowing the detail of our overlays helped us negotiate a positive outcome with council as I could speak with authority about certain issues and refer them back to their own guidance.

3.  Visit the devil at his/her place of residence - your local council offices.  When you have lodged a planning application, find out who your planner is and ask to meet with them as soon as it can be arranged.  We didn't do this, however I wish we had have.  It is easier to negotiate with people face to face than over the phone or by email where the devil's helpers (planners) can be as rude and unhelpful as they like.  On that note, it doesn't hurt to know who your planner's two away manager is - we needed to contact this two away manager to assist us with his staff member, let's call her Attila for short.

4. It's good to have friends - on council!  Fortunately a colleague and friend of mine is on the Board Audit Committee for the council which governs our property, he was able to help me with people to contact if we got stuck.  Also having an ex-colleague who happened to be a Mayor of a neighbouring council didn't go astray either.  Add to that a mum from school who was a town planner for another Melbourne council and this provided of wealth of inside information which was incredibly helpful for final negotiations.  If you are not as fortunate in this regard, then there are services that you can engage to assist with getting through council, they do come at a cost though.

5.  Here's a taste of some of the fun and games we dealt with.  Our block required a BAL assessment.  A BAL assessment is a Bush Fire Attack level rating.  These provisions were introduced after the tragic 'Black Saturday' bush fires in February 2009.  Fortunately, our block is at one of the lowest ratings which reduces the additional requirements, however without a doubt, money well spent.  You would think having a BAL rating would mean you would have a Bush Fire Management overlay (BMO) on your property - think again, these two requirements at present, do not go hand in glove.  A BMO assists in relaxing some of the native vegetation rules to assist the land owner manage their bush fire risk.   What that meant for us is that we have to be BAL compliant without getting any of the assistance that the BMO can provide.  Add to that the State wide 10/30 rule - that's a rule that allows vegetation clearance within 10 metre of where your house is located....did I say state wide rule?...ahhmm.  Yes, it is a state wide rule introduced by the Royal Commission after Black Saturday, however 21 councils in Melbourne are exempt from the benefits of this rule, of course, our council is one that is exempt.  Two doors to the right of our property, is the boarder for the neighbouring council, that council does allow the state wide 10/30 rule to be used.  So in a nutshell, we have additional cost and burden for the build based on the BAL applied to our property, however no assistance from either the BMO planning overlay or the "State-wide" 10/30 rule.  Our neighbours two doors down though, can remove vegetation to their hearts content.

We have a low-density overlay which applies to our property, originally this was one of the reasons we purchased the property as it meant that the area will never be over developed.  Not far from our block there are a number of beautiful acre blocks, however our block is 1200 sqm in what is really a suburban street.  Our block is rectangular, 20 meters frontage and 60 meters deep, however our overlay required us to have a meandering driveway....huh?  How do you have a meandering driveway on a regular, rectangle block?  Council did concede that this was not possible, however not without time delays and going back and forth over and over again.  Furthermore, they wanted the driveway to be gravel or porous, but demanded that the new cross-over we have to build be concrete,,hmmm.  Fortunately, we were able to get around this ridiculous conundrum by telling council that we would retain the existing gravel driveway that is currently on the property.  You see, you don't need a planning permit for a driveway unless you are obtaining planning for a whole new development - that means once you have your certificate of occupancy, you don't need a permit to build a driveway - that must be how all our neighbours were able to pave their driveways!!

After all that heartache, contemplating selling the block and throwing it all in, 6 months later we were notified that we actually didn't need planning permission and council refunded us our application fee - you heard right!

There's our council war story, I hope your battle scars are few and far between.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo

Building lesson #2 - Getting your ducks in a row.

Now this may seem obvious to some, however I cannot stress how important it is to get those proverbial "ducks in a row" at the start of the building process.

Last year, we were working with a builder, we had progressed through the design phase and thought we were ready to sell our home and get the ball rolling - yes, trick for young players there!  The builder we had been working with was dragging their feet with the delivery of our contract pricing, however they assured us that we were looking to be on budget...hmmmm.  So, as naive as it now seems, we did put our house on the market and eventually, after much chasing, we did receive our contract pricing, about two days before our auction.  The build cost was coming in significantly over budget which meant one of three things; 1) we either needed to extend ourselves and our mortgage or 2) we needed to sell the house for more or 3) we needed to save more dollars or cut the build budget.  Add this to the scenario where we were receiving offers for our current house which were less than we were expecting and this created quite a deep, dark financial hole.  Being a chartered accountant, this didn't sit well with me at all, so we decided to step back, take the house off the market and consider our options - we are now thanking our lucky stars that we did.

We took the opportunity to seek out other builders and obtain comparitive pricing, this has saved us approximately 15% of the original quote.  After speaking with friends who were either on the other side of the building process or much further along than us, we also thought it would be a good idea to make sure that our plans were through council while we living in our current home and not renting.   This has been invaluable.  It has taken us over 6 months to get through council, and from what I am hearing, this is relatively quick.  Many friends in neighbouring councils have taken up to 18 months to get their plans through council.  A school mum is building in a new land release in Melbourne's middle ring eastern suburbs, she sold her house a year ago, has been renting all that time and still has not broken ground.  Working with builders, you will find that they include these items called "provisional sums" basically a provisional sum is an allowance for an item - this may go up or down and if the item is a significant proportion of your budget, this needs to be worked out to ensure that there are no nasty surprises down the track.  In pricing with our new builder, there was a provisional sum for cabinetry - I was a bit sceptical about the amount.  To get some clarity around the amount, I have had three or four, two hour design meetings with the cabinet maker to really work out what we are trying to achieve with the cabinetry and benchtops, this has meant that we can turn a provisional sum into a quoted amount, which provides greater certainty for this significant amount in the budget.

So, building lesson number 2 for us was to get those ducks in a row.  Unless you love living with the inlaws or renting, it is wise to have all your plans and permits in place, have planning permission from the council, completed working drawings, electrical and mechanical plans, finances sorted and a solid contract price from a builder.

Thanks for stopping by,

Jo 

Building lesson #1 - Time!

So here's what I have learnt so far - the most important thing about building is giving yourself time...time to get to know your block, time to get to know how you live as a family, time to really work out what design style you love and can live with for many years to come.  When Jon and I bought our block, we had a one year old son, MJ and we had just found out we were pregnant with baby number 2, who would turn out to be our son LX.  At that stage of our life as a family, we really hadn't yet worked out how we lived as a family and what would be important for us as our kids grew.  We also weren't sure if more children may come as well....and they did, our daughter SJ.

The first scribbles of what our house may have turned out to be, are very different to what is now... almost... our final design.   With the kids now 8, 6 and 3, it has become very clear that we all need our own space - space for the adults to retreat to do some work (or get some much needed peace and quiet!), space to be together as a family and space for the kids to hang out, make a mess, make noise without mum constantly telling them to keep it down to a dull roar or to tidy up after I have stepped on another piece of lego!

As a working mum with kids at school, my nights evolve around washing, school lunches, washing, cooking for the next day, washing....you get the drill!  Where we live now, the kitchen is away from the main living area, so most nights Jon and I are in different rooms.  It is really important to us that the kitchen and living areas are well connected as well as the functional spaces such as the laundry, butler's pantry and mud room.  Here is a snip of our functional family zone.

This zone has been designed around our family and how we live.  We have included a study nook in the kitchen next to the fridge space and our butler's pantry has room for a second fridge, oven and dishwasher.  These appliances were originally not part of the design, however after much thought and consultation, we have opted to include them.  We also have a considerable amount of shelving in the pantry, this is to manage a slight obsession I have with Costco!  The laundry is a space I am actually looking forward to spending time in (still sad I know).  We have included a laundry chute, drying cupboard, elevated spaces for the washing machine and dryer and extensive bench spaces.  Thanks to Louise's advise (Our Hamptons style forever home), we have included three built in drawers for laundry hampers.  Each laundry drawer can fit two baskets in them, so I can sort laundry to my heart's content (very sad, definitely a problem!)

The mud room is basically a second laundry come store room. It is connected to the garage and will be where we enter the house most.  This is the place for the school bags and associated paraphernalia to be deposited at the end of the day.  Our cabinet maker has designed this to be a very functional, practical space - a bag space for each family member, drawers with white board facia to allow reminders and notes to be jotted down, shoe drawers, coat hooks, cupboards and even a seat so you can put on/take off your shoes - can't wait to use this space..ahhmm, and to show the kids how to use this space.

The family zone can be shut off from the rest of the house with what will be a sliding barn door.  This will help with noise, heating, cooling and giving this space a cozy feel in Winter.  In summer, this space can be opened up to the alfresco/pool area making this a large space for entertaining and providing a great flow for indoor/outdoor entertaining.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all,
Thanks for stopping by,
Jo

So why Roehampton?

Jon and I thought it might be nice to give our new home a name - everything we love we give a name to, so that was it, the house needed a name.  We did a lot of research in to the history of our new suburb and came up with a short list of names with some significance - but there was a problem, the names were signficant to our area and its history, a history we were not yet a part of, so none of these names seemed to fit.

I happened to be looking at one of our children's birth certificates and noticed the place of my husband's birth, Roehampton, London England.  There it was, it was there all along, our dream now has a name;

Roehampton.

To all the blogs I've loved before....

Hi Everyone,

Great to meet you!  I'm Jo.  In 2009 my husband Jon and I bought a great block of land in Melbourne's Eastern Suburbs, about 20kms out of the city.   This site will soon become our family home for Jon, myself and our three children.  Since we bought the block, I have immersed myself in all things design.  To that end, firstly, there are a few blog owners to thank and acknowledge - your generosity in sharing your experiences has been so inspirational and without doubt, has helped me to develop my own vision for our new home.

Louise - Our Hamptons Style Forever Home
Natasha - Building our House of Grey and White
Belinda - GallerieB
Amity - Doing our Block
White Verandah
Hawthorn House

So now it is my turn to share our journey and, hopefully, help someone else along the way.

Thanks for stopping by

Jo