Do you know the one thing that's more boring than applying for a building permit? Writing about it!! Which is why we haven't update this blog in so long. It's really frustrating to have this stage move along so slowly. In a nutshell, this is what has happened:
-We submitted our plans to council, setting the house back 6 meters from the front of the block to the porch. The council guideline is a 7.5 meter setback, but we wanted to have a smaller front yard and a bigger back yard..makes sense yes? Nooooo.....
-The permit went to the advertising stage, and unfortunately for us we received an objection from a resident in the street.
-We then submitted a compromise of 7.5 meters back from the front of the block to the lounge room (front of the house) instead of to the front of the porch
-Council delegate committee ruled against this compromise, and decided it needed to be 7.5 meters back from the porch. We could have then taken it further to VCAT, but decided it wasn't worth the risk of delaying the build even further.
And just when we thought we had all our paperwork ready and plans printed, a typo in the council requirements meant we had another small issue to deal with - meaning the drawings had to be redone (again!) Basically we are waiting for a letter from a building surveyor to say that the materials being used will comply with the ridiculously high BAL rating. Hopefully they will come through this week and we can submit them to the council again! Once the council have them it should take them two weeks to approve, then we just the builder to lock in a start date. THEN hopefully we'll be writing much more exciting and frequent posts like "Look, the slab has been laid" or "Whoo hoo, the frame is up!"
Luckily for us, we are loving where we are living, the boys are all really happy and doing well in their schools and footy teams, the fish and squid are biting, and even when the weather is bad, the scenery is gorgeous! Keep checking back, it has to all start soon right? Right...?????!
