ClearChain » council http://www.clearchain.com/blog -= Daily Happenings =- Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:21:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 House Sold, Development Approval Granted! http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/house-sold-development-approval-granted http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/house-sold-development-approval-granted#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:52:24 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=363 Well after a few hickups things are all on track. Since the last update Carly and I have officially sold our house, gone through settlement and are Living with Carly’s Parent’s John and Denise. At the same time we have got Development Approval from the Tea Tree Gully Council for our house, the shed and the access track! Today we found out that building approval has now been granted and we are just waiting for council to confirm the building approval and then things can start! In the interim we are finalizing finance and when the rain finaly stops, we hope to get the access track started.

It’s all happening!

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/house-sold-development-approval-granted/feed 0 Septic tank Approval Given http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/septic-tank-approval-given http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/septic-tank-approval-given#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:14:53 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=288 Today we received council approval to put in a septic tank… we think. You see we lodged plans for a sepage based septic tank with Tea Tree Gully Council, however our approval letter indicates an Aerobic septic tank. 

We’re currently working out what approval we have via way of contacting council.

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/septic-tank-approval-given/feed 0 The Shed and Access Track has been Submitted To Tea Tree Gully Council http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/the-shed-and-access-track-has-been-submitted-to-tea-tree-gully-council http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/the-shed-and-access-track-has-been-submitted-to-tea-tree-gully-council#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:42:00 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=273 shed-access-track

A sample of the access track/shed pad (includes house)

After attending Final selections Monday, Tuesday we received the site plans from our the engineers for both our shed pad and the access track. This is the final piece of the puzzle that we needed in order to make Tea Tree Gully council happy.

In Hills Face Zone, the council requires details about anything that requires earth works. This includes putting in a driveway (aka Access Track). The ironic thing is they actually need the access track in order to approve the house. Sadly the Access track was not included on the House application that was lodged.

So on Wednesday a quick visit to the council chambers and a little explaining solved a lot. I believe the members of planning are happy to work with people but often they get information second or third hand or people blatently ignore their guidelines. Hence no wonder they get annoyed.

Anyway, after explaining that we wanted to lodge plans for the shed AND the access track the lady at the desk refered me to the person looking after our house application. After reexplaining the situation the only alteration they required was a letter from us stating we would not commence construction of the shed before the house had reached “Lock Up” stage. Their reasoning for this is they don’t want people living out of sheds.

Dragon (the person looking after our house) then was happy to accept the shed application and indicated he would use the access track plan on the shed application to also assess the house application.  I was even able to lodge the shed application without the letter promising to provide it by the end of the day.

Hence I later emailed through the letter – later to fax it as sadly the council was unable to open the letter in the email I sent.

So after all this we have now lodged everything we need with council! So it really is a waiting game now. We are waiting on council to approve the house, the access track and the shed! Once this is done we can start getting things built!

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/the-shed-and-access-track-has-been-submitted-to-tea-tree-gully-council/feed 0 Final Selections at Format Homes http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/final-selections-at-format-homes http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/final-selections-at-format-homes#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:15:59 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=274

Monday Carly and I attended Format Homes for our Final selections. Things went very smoothly and we were very impressed at the range we had to choose from. In the end all we ended up needing to pay extra for was a few optional things we had requested. These included a 3rd coat of paint – due to us wanting a particular colour for the internal walls. We also had to pay extra for both a hot water plumbing loop and an upgrade to 20mm piping for all water.

This these three things were not surprizing since they are all non standard. The rest of selections went very smoothly. So now it’s a waiting game as we wait for council to approve/complain about our house plans!

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/final-selections-at-format-homes/feed 1 Council Progress – 3 weeks and counting http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/council-progress-3-weeks-and-counting http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/council-progress-3-weeks-and-counting#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:18:28 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/council-progress-3-weeks-and-counting Today a quick call to the council revealed that our plan is currently with the Department of Health. Apparently they are looking over the Septic tank system. I was told it’s been with them for a week now and approvals in general are taking 6 – 8 weeks.

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/council-progress-3-weeks-and-counting/feed 0 Submitted to Council, though problems persist http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/submitted-to-council-though-problems-persist http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/submitted-to-council-though-problems-persist#comments Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:06:53 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=195 After having the day off yesterday, Carly and I did a lot of ringing around to try and find out the state of things. Turns out that the second lot of engineering has now been done. Talking to Amanda at Format Homes, we were told that all had now been submitted to council – Which is great news!, well sort of. Turns out the submitted application didn’t have any details of an access track – as required by Tea Tree Gully Council in a Hills Face Zone. 

Hence we now have to provide access track details to Format so they can get an engineer to detail a cut an fill plan – sadly more cost :(
Below is the track that we want to the house:
 

 

Access Track for our block

Access Track for our block

 

 

We also called into Clipsal yesterday and got where all our lights, powerpoints etc, sorted out. It came to a little more than the builders spec but since this is the last house we are going to have, a few more power points certainly never hurts. We also caught up with the bank and got our construction loan arranged – just waiting upon approval now.

]]> http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/submitted-to-council-though-problems-persist/feed 0 Welcome to Lot 723 One Tree Hill Road, Gould Creek http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/welcome-to-lot-723-one-tree-hill-road-gould-creek http://www.clearchain.com/blog/posts/welcome-to-lot-723-one-tree-hill-road-gould-creek#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:44:08 +0000 Benjamin Close http://www.clearchain.com/blog/?p=179 Lot 723 One Tree Hill Road

Lot 723 One Tree Hill Road, Gould Creek

Welcome to the first in many articles about the creation of Carly and my dream paradise at Lot 723, One Tree Hill Road, Gould Creek, South Australia, Australia

On the 29th of August 2008, Carly and I became the proud owners of 16.8 acres of land at Gould Creek,  South Australia.  The block is located 7 minutes away from suburbia and in a typical country environment. It’s a little hilly in places but there’s ample room to build a house, shed and to have a family. Together with room for a mini farm!

Now August is a long way in the past, it’s now January. Hence there has been lots of developments that have happened.  We knew when we bought the place that there were some major challenges ahead of us. Among them were: where to build, what to build, who to build with, what to do for power/water (there’s no mains anything on the block).

Over the last few months (and even the months leading up to the ownership of the land) we have been debating/researching these questions. Since then we have gone through many display homes, many house designs and found that none of them were exactly what we wanted.  Some were very close but none of them were perfect.

You see the problem is we are aiming to build a self sustainable home. Sadly most traditional houses are not designed with energy efficiency in mind, most builders don’t give two hoots about whether your house is oriented to maximise things like solar heating/passive cooling, whether you’ll have enough insulation, whether the roof is orientated to maximise solar coverage -  They really just don’t care.  All they are after is a quick sale, not deviating from the norm, to make some quick money.

So after looking at many designs we found one we like. Then we met our neighbours….

No, our neighbours aren’t the neighbours from hell,  far from it they are some of the nicest people I’ve met. However, they alerted us to the fact that the council may have a few words to say about our house design and the location we wanted to build. Turns out our block is 1 of 503 located in a zone called ‘Hill Face Zone’. This zone has an aim to be, well, kept as natural as possible. Not only that, we are in the Tea Tree Gully Council, a council notorious for being hard to deal with.

This is where our dramas started. Seems there’s lots of regulations that apply in hills face zone, that don’t apply in other zones. Some of these include:

  • Needing to build below a ridge
    • There goes our plans to build on top of the hill
  • Needing to blend in to the environment
    • Ie, no red brick, no red roofs, etc – not a problem for us
  • A maximum roof height
    • Not a problem for us
  • Needing to follow the contour of a hill
    • This made us change the design of our house to suit

There’s more but this is just what I remember at the moment!

Anyway with these rules in mind we designed our house, found a builder and started things in motion. At present we are in the process of finalizing engineering details and selection details.. that’s where this article stops and the process of creating our paradise begins… stay tuned for more.

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