Ayres Rocks

We have the engineering back finally. I had to send it back and insist that some of the terminology used throughout the paperwork was inconsistent with what we were actually doing. A big thankyou to RCI for understanding my concerns and getting all the words in order.

Now we have all this, it’s time to send Darren at Wise Drafting Pty Ltd the engineering so he can complete the technical side of our drawings.

Once we have these back it is then off to a certifier. The certifier is the third party who checks all the drawings and engineering and signs off on them as complying with all relevant codes. We could have Council do this as part of the application, but by going the private route we remove any potential objections the council may have. Simply put – if the certifier says it’s all proper Council must send us an approval notice within 5 days of us lodging for this part of the application.

Once we have all this paperwork and it’s stamped and approved it’s again to Council for the third-last application we need to make on this journey. We still need to apply to Council to have them approve the waste water installation and issue a certificate of occupancy.

This phase has been long and drawn out with a lot of “traps for new players” we have come across despite researching as thoroughly as we did.

Would we do it again?– Yeah, I think we would. This process has cost us a around $4000 from the first chat we had with Darren and including the (yet to be done) certifier’s work. This is around $1500 more than if we had left it all to Council to make the decisions on. I feel we got more of “our way” with the end result since we have paid the professionals we used to deliver what we wanted. Council on the other hand are only obliged to approve what they feel is fitting with the development plan for the area, and I feel we would have been forced to heavily compromise the end result to satisfy that plan.

If you’re thinking of going the owner builder route and want to discuss with us just what we had ready at each stage of this process (and what we missed), or just want some general advice I’m always happy to offer what I can. Contact me via the information contained in the About section of this site.

To be honest it’s more like half a tree of copies of the plans we submitted sent back, signed by the council’s chief planner as being approved. We have been granted planning approval for the development!!!

All said and done it was 50 days between lodgement with a single round of clarifications and amendments, before we got the approval.

As we were all wide eyed and slack jawed with what needed to be done, I need to send out a big “thanks” to Aaron at the council who took on our case and was truly easy to deal with.

Now, we just need to get all the engineering paperwork back so we can get started on the building consent approval which covers the various building codes and so on we are required to adhere to.