Progress at last!

 
Who could believe that after signing the building contract, not a blade of grass had been disturbed in three months!!

We finally have some action shown in the photos. The clearing of the block has been completed, the cut has been done for the downstairs, and now the foundations have been poured.

The builders make preparations to pour the foundations.

Getting back to the delays. We signed the contract on the 17th of July and fully expected the Building Permit to be issued within probably three weeks to a month. How wrong we were. We did not hear back from the Council for nearly a month, and then they noted two amendments to be processed before the permit could be issued:

Amendment 1:

There is a small retaining wall next to the boundary fence on the west side of the block which is raised about 1.2 metres above the natural fall of the land, and this needs to have the landowners on this side of the block sign off on this, even though there is an existing fence between the two properties. As this  is a holiday home, we were unable to speak to the owners, and attempts to contact them by phone were unsuccessful. All the necessary documents were then sent to their residential address by registered mail. The long and short of the whole story was, it took nearly a month to make contact, agree on a site meeting and obtain a sign off for this retaining wall. Plain sailing from here… not yet….

Amendment 2:

Storm water discharge. The Council did not agree with the original proposal in the initial Planning Permit to discharge the storm water into the existing sewer line at the rear of the property. Not sure why this wasn't queried in the initial submission. Anyway, there were two options:

a) Run the storm water to a pit situated on the far corner of the owners property on the west side of the block

b) Build a storm water pit on the property, install a pump and pump all storm water up into the court at the front of the property.

The site, fully cleared and marked out ready to build.

 
We only needed a verbal agreement from the neighbours to satisfy the Council requirements to run the storm water into the existing pit on their property, but this wasn't forthcoming. Legally, there is nothing to stop this drain going through, as there is an easement on both properties to allow for this. However, it would be nice to have a neighbourly agreement to proceed.

Out of sheer frustration, we had an amended plan drawn up and submitted to the Council to show that the storm water will be collected and then pumped back up into the street. One week later we had the permit!

Almost three months to the day from signing the contract we were in business on the ground.