After almost a year since we lodged our application for a planning permit to build a double-storey at the back of an existing house, I am ecstatic it's almost to be issued by council. The council has released a notice to issue a planning permit. This is so because we have an objection from a neighbor whose only reason for objecting is because "it's an eyesore". In the spirit of due process, the objector is given 21 days to contest the permit with VCAT, which I am hoping he won't go that far. If that would be the case, council will be releasing the final permit after 21 days.
This planning permit is very important because this would be our stepping stone to our property investing journey. Mainly because this would give us an equity for the next investment property. And most importantly because this will surely teach us a lot in so many ways re property investing.
Yay!! It's really exciting when you finally have those little bits of paper!
Are you going to make a good profit off this?
And are you going to do it again?Good luck, now you have to build it!
D
DWolfe | www.homestagers.com.au
http://www.homestagers.com.au
Email MeGreat work, hopefully the 21 days will work out in your favour. I did the same sort of development in Dandenong council with no objections but had a rejection by council. Thankfully we won at VCAT. Let us all know when its through
Andrew
itsandrew
Go as far as you can see and you will see further.
It's exciting indeed.
We're planning to hold it long term, and use the equity to buy/build a new one.
I am positive it will work out in our favor.
Thanks guys.
Just want to update everyone of the status of the planning permit as discussed above.
I got a call from the townplanner yesterday informing me that there was a last minute appeal from the objector, and that it would be by March next year the earliest that VCAT can call for a hearing on the case. I was really shocked and frustrated on hearing the news; I felt i was crushed or something. But what can I do; we have to abide by the rules.
But earlier this afternoon I received a call again from the townplanner telling me that VCAT had actually stuffed up with information; the appeal from the objector was for another application. Our application was actually good to go. YEHEY. What a feeling of relief; sweet feeling I must say.
Next on the agenda is subdivision… wish us luck.
Congratulations! It's always good to hear a success story. Good luck with the next one.
Andrew
itsandrew
Go as far as you can see and you will see further.
Thanks Andrew.
I will update every now and then on the development of this project.
Update on Planning Permit:
We got the planning permit but no stamped plans because the permit has several conditions. This means that the floors plans should be modified according to the conditions before council endorses and stamps it. This also means we need to pay the draftsman to do the modifications. This is surely another obstacle again putting us off for several weeks.
At the moment I feel disappointed with the townplanner we hired to do the applications for us. I am not sure if I am entitled to feel this way towards them. I mean it is their job to have anticipated that there would be conditions to the planning permit. That's why we paid for a professional to do the application in our behalf. They would have asked council if there would be any conditions to plans if they were to issue the planning permit. Or is this just a revenue-raising scheme. I don't want to jump to conclusions by at the moment i feel the townplanner let us down and we are paying for it dearly.
Novispriomo, deep breath now! There are modifications with plenty of permits. We had to move windows in our units as the neighbour complained of overlooking. We also had to have frosted glass on the 1st floor windows. The architect had to go back and draw this in, fix bits and pieces. We had to make changes for the turning circle of the cars for unit 2 meaning that unit 3 was to "technically" be a 2 bedroom unit.
I wouldn't worry about this. Concentrate on what YOU can change or do or complete and get that going. Developing is never going to be quick, councils love a bit of foot dragging.
Good luck. Keep us updated, keep breathing
D
DWolfe | www.homestagers.com.au
http://www.homestagers.com.au
Email MeThanks DWolfe for the encouragement. At least on the positive side, there is another thing i learned from this. It has been a learning experience and i am still climbing up the learning curve.
Hey Novus,
I am afraid to say but it's the same experience that I had. We even had a ruling from VCAT that we complied with 100% and they still wouldn't stamp the plans till we made changes. I thought for a moment I was going to have to go back to VCAT to get the plan approved … AGAIN!
Council also messed us around with the original plans before VCAT. We complied 100% with council 'suggestions' in the pre planning meeting and complied 100% again to their requests after our drafts were completed by the architect when we met with them again. Very frustrating but it seems like it's just how things are with council town planners. If i hadn't been there myself I would have considered my architect a bit dodgy. But he was good about it and did the final ammendment at no extra cost.
With council you need to just keep chipping away at it. On the upside you at least know what they want (I assume in writing) to get the plans stamped. Council just rejected it straight out for us and gave us no 'second chance' to get it through. Sounds like you'll get there. Keep us updated
Andrew
itsandrew
Go as far as you can see and you will see further.
novusprimo wrote:Update on Planning Permit:We got the planning permit but no stamped plans because the permit has several conditions. This means that the floors plans should be modified according to the conditions before council endorses and stamps it. This also means we need to pay the draftsman to do the modifications. This is surely another obstacle again putting us off for several weeks.
At the moment I feel disappointed with the townplanner we hired to do the applications for us. I am not sure if I am entitled to feel this way towards them. I mean it is their job to have anticipated that there would be conditions to the planning permit. That's why we paid for a professional to do the application in our behalf. They would have asked council if there would be any conditions to plans if they were to issue the planning permit. Or is this just a revenue-raising scheme. I don't want to jump to conclusions by at the moment i feel the townplanner let us down and we are paying for it dearly.
I very much doubt that your planner is at fault, councils frequently place conditions on permits and you never know what you are going to get until the decision is made. This is the nature of the process. You can always appeal the conditions in VCAT if you don't like them.
I would love to write a rezone receipt for a client that looked like this:
INVOICE 38876 Ocean Architectural Studio
Service Amount
consult $0
drafting $5
planning report $5
strategic plan meeting $5
submission $5
pain of dealing with council $83,533.25Total $83,553.25
BSB xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxx NAB ACC xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxx
itsandrew
Go as far as you can see and you will see further.
We are just waiting on the stamped plan from council, so it would be anytime soon. But there is a bit of development from my water application for the subdivision. Yarra Water says that we should not be planting a tree on one corner because the sewer is just under it; but this is on the plan coz council required it. I told our planner about it, but she recommended to just sit on it at the moment until we get our stamped plan coz it will delay everything again. Knowing how slow council works, i think that's a good idea.
It brings back memories. I'm feeling your pain.
itsandrew
Go as far as you can see and you will see further.
All part of the learning process. Thanks for sharing.
Just thought I'd ask since it's a two storey if the window would be overlooking someone's backyard. There could be further issues if the windows do overlook someone's backyard and one way to avoid it is to design the windows to look straight or upwards.
I was in a tour one time provided by the council (some councils can be proactive) where the guide mentioned the mistakes made by the council (approval) and developers alike. One thing mentioned was the window design where we passed a block of townhouses where the windows were blocked by a thin piece of timber as it overlooks a backyard and it doesn't look nice.
Just thought I'd share.
Thanks for sharing as well.
But I think I made an update in another post that we scrapped the two-storey plan and switched to another draftsperson who doesn't rip us off with every modification to the plan. So basically, we made it a 2 bedroom single storey as advised by our builder. Coz even for a 2-storey we can only still fit in 2 bedrooms as council has limited the space for the upper storey. It would be cheaper to build a 2-bedroom single storey than a 2 bedroom double storey, albeit it's a little bit smaller in floor area.As of now, we are again waiting on the stamped plan from council so we can proceed. We have submitted everything they required and it's almost a month now since. What's taking them so long…. I can only sigh.
It's now 2 years since we started on this project. It seems a long time already. But I know I am on the right track, so I need to be patient.
Hi there,
Do you mind if I ask which council you are dealing with as I am also experiencing similar kind of issue with the council?
My application has gone through the advertising process last december and now the town planner is taking all this time to issue permit.
And are you going to do it again?
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