Subdivision town planner cost

Hi Noobugawa,

I have some experience with this. I have posted some forum questions too but no one has answered either of our questions yet. It’s a great site with fantastic members so I am sure that someone, in the know, will answer us within a week or so.
I am answering your post, with my limited experience, but it may be sufficient.

Short answer is “Yes”, that cost sounds reasonable.
However, I have more details below that include some extra costs on top of your 1), 2), 3).

My past quotes,
1). Design of three townhouses &
2). Documentation & submission of a planning permit application.
$ 9,000. I write (APPLICATION) as I had no guarantees of approval. The Architect/Drafts-person should have a very good understanding of the council requirements/regulations to make the best application possible & to work with council with amendments if required. I suggest that you call the council and ask for a list of Architects/Draft-persons that they “mainly” deal with. The council cannot & will not give you information regarding which architects they “prefer” to approve & they will not order the list in any way for you. It’s just a list of “mainly” dealt with architects but that’s a good start to get a 2nd quote. Interview a few from that list (that are close to your development property) and pick the one that you feel more comfortable with.
(I believe that steps 1 & 2 can be done for as little as $ 5,000 but I’d rather pay $9,000 to an Architect/Drafts-person that understands the customer’s needs & the needs of the council).

3) $ 11,000 for engineering sounds reasonable so your total of $20,000 appears be at least average. :)
I am thinking that getting a Building permit requires more work than just getting engineering plans drawn up & approved but I cannot give you details about this because I do not know. I would like to make it clear that there are even more costs to gaining Subdivision – see below.

There may be a “Public Open Space Contribution fee”. (My council requires the fee paid for 3 or more dwellings but some councils may have the fee for a 2 lot subdivision). It may not be applicable to you but you should ask them for confirmation. There are some exceptions to paying this fee however exceptions are rare. I think it can be a fee from 2% to 5% of the cost of your land. It can be a considerable amount. Note: Individual councils use a different percentages.

Then there are subdivision costs paid to the land surveyor for the creation & lodging to authorities all of the requirements. I have not reached the subdivision stage yet but I believe the costs could be from $5,000 to $10,000 for that part alone.

There may be more costs than the ones that I have mentioned above – I am only answering from my limited experience so that you can still move forward until you get more accurate feedback.

I hope that this information assists you. More happiness & wealth to you. Good luck.

Cheers.