Approved

Well, that timing was better! We received the good news yesterday. As mentioned, we re-submitted with the height of the garage roof half way between the normal height they'd suggested and what we had originally asked for. They had one condition on the approval and that is that we make sure the garage door is the same colour as the surrounding brick work. Sure, no problem. We can do that. Our drafting company will now send the plans off to the mines subsidence board for their tick of approval and then it's on into council early in the new year.

Declined

So, 14 business days after we submitted it and 4 businerss days (6 regular days) after they committed to respond, we finally heard from the developer with the news that they have declined our plans. They said our garage structure is too dominant and therefore not inline wiht the design guidelines. I am not entirely surprised as I think we were pushing it but, hey, you can only try. M wanted to push it up as high as possible so that we could use the roof space to constuct a loft for extra storage (of, perhaps, some home gym equipment!). The developer returned our plans with some red pen drawings showing what they thought was more acceptable. They'e pushed it right back down to single storey height. We've asked the draftsman to do it somewhere between the 2 and try our luck again.

I guess all this makes no sense without some pics, though, does it? Thus, I have uploaded some for you. Our floor plan and the externals.

This is the ground floor:
This is the first floor:

And here are the external elevations and the basic colour scheme we are looking at using. You can see we pushed up the roof height of the garage to get as much use out of the roof space as possible. That's what they didn't like. Mr Together-House really wanted it. Despite being concerned that it may be knocked back for being too dominant, I was also concerned that it looks a bit funny with all that cladding area above the garage door. Don't have to worry about it now.

Back to waiting again now. And with the developers delay in bothering to respond last time and them now having ANOTHER 10 business days to come back to us, we won't hear back on this until the New Year, I expect. Oh well, as much as impatient little me would like to know now (well, yesterday actually) we are not ready to commence building immediately anyway. Lucky!

C'mon people!

By my calculations, we should have received a response on our plans from the developer yesterday. They were lodged 16th Nov and they have 10 business days. They were lodged post 5pm so maybe they decided to count from 17th Nov, which puts us at today. So, here I sit stalking my inbox waiting for some kind of news.

Our Block

So, what's the good of making a record of things and not including photos, right?



I'll start at the beginning with some snap shots of our block. This first one is standing at the road and looking down the block. As you can see it slopes from front to back as well as from left to right. Some people would say this is a steep block but after having lived and owned 2 blocks of land in the Mountains (one of which we are yet to build on - M wants to do it as an owner builder project so we are strategising ways to make that work) that make this look like it's practically flat, we are not at all put off by it.

This one is taken from about 2/3 of the way down the block looking back up. Clearly it definitely does have a fair slope to it, we are not naive, it's just that we have experience with even slopier blocks and know that buiding on it is more than possible. Plus, the lovely features you can end up with using the different levels are well worth the extra effort.

The block itself is 1119 sqm but the development where it is located has prescribed on each block a set "development envelope" in which you must limit your building. The development is in a national park so they are seeking to maintain as much natural bushland as possible. Outside of the development envelope you can clear underbrush and shrubs, mulch to keep neat, and plant with extra natives but that is it. Everything else must be done in your development envelope. Our development envelope encompasses an area of 425m2 in the middle of the block. Here is our site analysis. The outline of the full block is in blue with the development envelope in red. A very nice sized block indeed.

Behind us is a big wildlife corridoor. They are currently working on the the next phase of the development, which is on the other side of this wildlife corridoor. We had assumed when we purchased our land that we would end up with backyards facing us on the other side of that wildlife corridoor, which was fine as it would just be filtered view of their yards and houses through the pretty trees. We have recently viewed the plan of the blocks and much to our delight it turns out that they are leaving a bush area on the other side of the corridoor so there will just be trees, trees, and more trees in our view to the rear. YAY! Our block in the Mountains backed onto the national park. We like trees.

Recording the journey

I am starting this blog to keep a record of a house that my husband, Mr Together-House, and I will commence building sometime in 2011. Perhaps it will be interesting to some to read and follow, or perhaps not. Just thought it'd be nice to track it all along the way.

Mr Together-House has built before. In the beautiful Blue Mountains. About 10 years ago he sold his fishing boat to purchase himself a block of land. We were dating at the time and talked about building on it and living there together but then went through a bit of a rough patch in our relationship, which meant he did the design and building part himself. He had a builder construct the house to lock-up stage then he finished the internals and all the decking himself. He then rented it to some friends for a few years before moving into it on his own. After a somewhat rocky courtship we did eventually marry and I joined him there. We went on to complete the gardens and owner-build a garage with a second storey "loft" space above it. It was a beautiful house and he did a fine job of it but this blog is not about that house.

We moved from the Blue Mountains to the Central Coast (just south of Lake Macquarie) a year ago, a few months after our twin girls were born. We had no family in the Moutains but plenty over this way so it makes more sense. Plus, I've promised him that one day he'll get his fishing boat back. Well, not the one he sold, but another one to replace it. It was quite a fishing boat, which he had pretty much built himself so it was quite a sacrifice for him. A very willing sacrifice but a sacrifice nonetheless. I look forward to the day we can get him another.

We purchased land on beautiful Lake Macquarie, 30 mins further north of where we are now and about 90 mins north of Sydney, in May. Got a rip snorter of a deal and have since then been in the process of having plans drawn up. The land is in a new development and the plans must be submitted to the owners of the development as an initial thing so they can ensure it meets the design guidelines (which are not overly stringent). Once approved they go into council. Our submission to the developers was last Tuesday (16th Nov). They have 10 business days to respond. So, I guess by Tuesday 29th they'll either tell us yes or they'll tell us something needs to change. We used a drafting company with lots of experience drawing up plans for homes in this development so if there are any issues I think they will only be small. But then of course once you change them and resubmit, it's another 10 day wait for a response. So, could be a long process if they decide to be picky. Not a worry, though, we are not ready to start digging the ground just yet anyway. Lucky because once we get through the developers we have to deal with council and that'll be another couple of months.

Anyway, this is enough rambling for my opening blog. Suffice it to say that we are both very excited to be finally building our together house...