This week our front courtyard fence and retaining wall plans were finalised by the Draftsman and stamped approved by the Structural Engineer to say they're all good to go.
So I skipped merrily into the Council's office to give them the set of plans (6 drawings in total) and a form completed for the fence to be built and fluttered my eyelashes asking if they could fast track approval so we could get to work on it over the Christmas Holidays.
Unfortunately I was told I had filled in the wrong form and would need to apply for a building permit (same as what we did for the garage build) with an estimate of what the job will cost in total and the Council takes a percentage of the build cost. It doesn't stop there, the plans (which are 6 different drawings) don't give enough detail apparently, the Council want to know the gradient of the land for the front of the fence and the plans only show the fence gradient from the side.
I tried to reason we've spent almost $1,000 on the plans and even had them stamped by an Engineer as thought that would cover all bases. They suggested we give them a copy of the garage plans they have previously approved, as well as these new plans, complete the building permit form and try again. Hopefully there will be enough information in both sets of plans for us to get the go ahead.
Whilst the memory of the garage extension taking 12 months to get approved still lingers, apparently there is a 25 day turn around on these building permits so fingers crossed we'll get them lodged with the Council and get the go ahead early in the New Year.
So we won't be digging trenches over the holidays as hoped but there's always some other jobs around the house we can get stuck into instead ... like finishing the painting of the house exterior that was rendered a few months ago .... or hanging a new door in the bathroom incase we get any Christmas visitors that decide to come at shower time and get more than they bargain for!
So we won't be digging trenches over the holidays as hoped but there's always some other jobs around the house we can get stuck into instead ... like finishing the painting of the house exterior that was rendered a few months ago .... or hanging a new door in the bathroom incase we get any Christmas visitors that decide to come at shower time and get more than they bargain for!
It's all good I'm staying cool and moving onto Plan B!
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Oh no! I hope that they approve the paperwork and everything. We are planning on having our basement finished in the next few years. The idea of having a cool hang out spot downstairs is awesome! The reality of the process we will have to go through to get there terrifies me.
ReplyDelete"in case we get any Christmas visitors that decide to come at shower time and get more than they bargain for!"...VERY FUNNY!
Have a great day!
Bugger!
ReplyDeleteCouncils certainly don't like to make things easy do they?
My parents council is notorious for being difficult, it took them 2 years to get approval to build their house. In the end it was moved about 20 mtrs back (on a 200 acre block!) - ridiculous!
Fingers crossed you get approval soon!
x
Ugh, councils. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly from here on for you and you can get to digging trenches soon :)
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