Building lesson #5 - Getting through the evil that is council planning permission: the sequel

All good horror movies have a sequel, why should council planning be any different?

You may recall my post last year which detailed blow by painful blow, the struggle we had to obtain council planning permission, the ridiculous amount of bureaucratic red tape and the decision in the end that after all that time and effort, we didn't need a planning permit as we had complied with the requirements of all of our overlays.

You can imagine our reaction when during the Building Permit phase, our building surveyor told us that he couldn't issue a building permit because we didn't have "planning permission".  I thought he must have missed the letter we receive from council indicating that we didn't need permission - think again!  Our building surveyor told us that one of the overlays had changed in February of this year and now our build which was 100% compliant three months before is now subject to needing a planning permit.

So what happened in February I hear you ask?  The Victorian Government changed all significant landscape overlays to include protections for the Yarra River.  That means that any development close to the Yarra River which may have an affect on the banks, watercourse, or public viewing, must now meet these new requirements.  These new requirements adjust wall heights from being compliant at 8 meters to now needing permission for anything over 6 meters.  As our block is slopping and we are building a double story house, in one section we are at 8 meters.  The provisions of the overlay I fully support, you only need look at the development along the Yarra River in Richmond to see that protection was needed, however our block is about 1km away from the river up and over a hill.  We would need to be building the Eureka Tower to cast any shadows over the Yarra.

Surely there are transitional arrangements for those who went through council prior to the changes?  Absolutely!  If you have a planning or building permit in place prior to February this year, then you don't have to comply with the new provisions.  Our problem, council informs us, is that because we were compliant, that is, we obeyed every rule and designed the house to meet every overlay condition, we didn't need a planning permit so therefore, we don't have a planning permit and the transitional rules don't apply to us.  That means we now have to go back to council planning, advertise the development and get permission....again....for the second time in 12 months....sigh, yell, scream, curse!!!!

Our council have acknowledged how unfair this is for us, but has basically told us that we are unlucky and to get on with it.  Supposedly no one owed us a duty of care to inform us of the changes which occurred in February, even though we had a letter granting permission that was no longer valid.

The positive to come out of this situation though is that I have taken the issue to the Victorian State Government and have spoken directly to the planner who drafted the amendment.  This planner told me that he and his team spent a day work-shopping who might be affected by the new rules to ensure everyone was being dealt with fairly - it never occurred to them that there would be anyone is our situation.  This planner was a shining example of a public servant, he apologised for the situation we now found ourselves in and we worked together to draft a third transitional arrangement which will now be used when planning overlays change.  That way, hopefully none of you will find yourselves in this planning predicament.

Our council have also provided assistance expediting the planning process and waiving the fee!  I guess I should be thankful that they are at least trying to help us out of a most unjust and unfair situation.

We will be delayed (all going to plan, pardon the pun!) by about 2 months.....fingers crossed!

Thanks for stopping by

Jo

Building lesson #4 - Keep having fun along the way

Building is a long, often tough and stressful journey - that's why it is so important to have some fun, dream and be creative along the way.  Nothing shakes off the building blues like meetings with your cabinet maker - just try not to think about the budget while you are being creative!!  One of my favourite interior designers, Belinda, from Gallerie B, recently shared on her blog her great ideas for storage - it is definitely worth a read.  We have recently finished our cabinetry design with our cabinet maker and I wanted to share with you all some of the great little ideas we have come up with for each space, in this post, I will walk you through the kitchen.

Kitchen

Well there she is, the bones of what will eventually be my dream kitchen

The most important part about designing this kitchen was to think carefully about how we use our kitchen, how we needed traffic to flow through the kitchen and what space I would need for storage. My current kitchen is a U-shape which is fine for one or two people, however you add three little poppets to that kitchen and it is a recipe for disaster.  It is so important to have two points of entry and exit to allow all family members using the kitchen to move freely in the space.  

Our island bench design was next on the agenda.  Many friends have questioned my decision to include the sink in the island bench, however, for our family and the way we live, this was a conscious decision.  I can be at the sink, working at the bench, cooking, making lunches and still be a part of whatever is going on with the family as my view is to the family room, not a fence or the side of the house.  We designed the seating at the bench to be situated all at one end creating an informal table space where the 5 of us could have a quick bite to eat while still seeing each other.  Most island bench designs have the seating all to the rear, lined up next to each other in a row - we wanted to create a space where we could gather around and talk to each other.  Creating this space also prevents the kids homework from getting wet as they are not sitting behind the sink.  Our island bench is 3.5 meters long and 1.3 meters wide, as such, there is plenty of room for gatherings at one end, food prep and food presentation, even with the sink in the island.  The bench has storage on both sides.....oh the storage.....

This is the "sink" side of the island bench.  To the far left we have a bin draw, the bin draw has a bin for rubbish, a bin for recycling and a shelf at the top.  The shelf stops the bins from being over filled (hmmm), keeps any smells contained by acting like a lid and also creates a space for storing spare garbage bags.  Next to the bin draw is the dishwasher and either side of the sink are my gorgeous little creations...the slide out cupboard drawers.  One slide out cupboard drawer has baskets in them, the other has towel rails, like these ones below:

One side will be used for storing sponges, dish-mops etc, the other will have rails for a tea-towel and hand-towel.  This should keep my gorgeous butlers sink free from sponges.

Under the butlers sink is another drawer which has a very clever, "draw in draw" design.  Having a draw under the butlers sink makes access a breeze - no more searching for that illusive cleaner at the back of the cupboard.  The draw in draw means small items like spare sponges, cloths and scourers can be easily found.

The other side of the island bench has full sized cupboards which will help with table setting duties. You will see what I mean when you look at our family room floor plan.

Ground Floor Plan

Our dining table will be situated between the kitchen and family room, so the cupboard at the back of the island bench will be very handy for storing all the things we need for setting the table each night.

We have included a study nook (hmmm, nook?  It is 1.5m wide) in the main area of the kitchen for the same reason the sink is in the island bench - I can keep a close eye on homework, or internet activity, or I can do some work while still being in the main living area of the house.  The study nook is at bench height so the bar stools can be moved around from the bench to the study nook.  There is a draw under the bench in the study nook which acts as a "charging station" - this should keep all the devices neatly stored away while they are charging - they can also be checked in at night so they don't find their way to the kids' bedrooms!

The butlers sink decision was a change of heart.  Originally I had a double bowl undermount sink planned, however after some prompting from our cabinet maker, we changed to a butlers sink, not just for aesthetics but for practicality.  Our butlers sink is about 80cm wide, we favoured the space for washing large pots and platters rather than the need to fill the sink.  This did lead to our decision to include a smaller sink in the butlers' pantry and a double bowl sink in the laundry - which may act as a double ice bucket from time to time!!

There is so much to love about the butlers pantry, an additional dishwasher, room for a 60cm wall oven and microwave, room for a second fridge, a place for the kettle and toaster and so many shelves for food storage.  Those are all a given in a dream butlers pantry, but for me, what I am really excited about are two little storage additions.  The first is the vertical shelves that we are including above the wall oven - these vertical shelves act as dividers for platter storage - no more deconstructing platter towers to get to that super large platter I need at the bottom!

Pinterest

The second storage addition is the book shelves above the fridge.  My cabinet maker suggested keeping the kitchen free from clutter but was all for having shelves for my recipe books above the fridge in the pantry.  We also have a large blank wall in the pantry - this is likely to become the family organisation station and include the whiteboard calendar and a place for the endless stream of school notices and birthday invitations.

Either side of the main oven are two slide out drawers (the same style as either side of the sink) for oven and baking trays, either side of the mantle are condiments cupboards.  The banks of drawers either side of the oven include a shallow top draw for spice racks, tea-towels, foil, cling wrap etc.

Pinterest

Designing this kitchen, thinking about how we will live and come together as a family in this space has been such a joy.

Thanks for stopping by,
Jo

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