Engaging an architect meant that Trevor handled all the
paperwork etc to do with the application, all we had to do with sign the forms
and wait. We had expected a 3-6 month wait for approval (or otherwise) and were
all shocked when the plans were approved in 30 days – unheard of! In retrospect
I think this had a lot to do with Trevor and his extensive knowledge of Inner
West councils and doing plans for small plots and all that entails (over
shadowing etc). We all wanted to plans to go through as smoothly as possible
but Trevor had the knowledge to make this happen and still keep us happy by
giving us what we wanted – a win all round in my books.
Amazed at how quick you got this through Council..our building designer started work Aug 11, put through 3 abortive attempts, and we finally got our DA for our Rozelle extension in May 12!! For anyone reading this, whatever you do DON'T USE SCOPE BUILDING DESIGN (Balmain) - no idea whatsoever about Leichhardt Council's building regs. Also, plans were inadequate on the details and littered with mistakes. Whilst we have now finally got our build done with an excellent proj mgr we found by ourselves, we still had to fund design errors made by Scope that meant going back into Council for a s96 mid-build.
ReplyDeleteWe and Trevor both wanted to put something in to council that we thought would get through, rather than push the boundaries too much. Ideally I wanted the upstairs bigger but it was more important, for us, to get the plans through than an extra 40cm upstairs. Saying that we were all shocked when it was approved in 30 days - pretty much unheard of.
DeleteI am glad to hear that you did eventually get your house done - are you happy with the result?
We thought we would do the same - ie keep within the bounds of what others had got approved previously. Unfortunately, we relied upon our designer to know (or at least check) Council's requirements before lobbing plans in. We also had one difficult neighbour (who previously opposed all preceding developments on our street, as I found on review of Council's website). We did eventually get there, and are pretty happy with the result and what it cost to achieve.
ReplyDelete