It absolutely angers me that I have to write this post. I’m pretty much broken in regard to this knock-down re-build. The dreams of actually living in a new home are so far gone. Problem after problem, and the actual build hasn’t even started. There have been more dramas than I can even mention, but the latest is becoming very frustrating. I don’t even know who to blame – the builders, council or maybe even ourselves…
Without going on and on, and to be honest I’m totally confused – we are waiting on “Sign & Consent” from our neighbours. One neighbour signed straight away, but the other is playing games… the frustrating part is his house is not even occupied, and hasn’t been for around 14 years!!! AND, until recently even had a squatter. It has been under renovation for the 10 plus years we have owned our house. It’s a complete eye saw and brings the whole street down, but to council that appears to be ‘ok’!
So basically the way I understand it is that we needed our neighbours to sign and consent to the setback we want. Our setback is within council legislation, but is slightly further forward than the original house. The part I don’t understand is that 8 of our neighbours were sent our plans whilst applying for the Planning Permit, and we had a Public Notice Sign up for two weeks. Nobody objected so we thought all was good… But we weren’t informed that we needed the neighbours (only the ones directly next door) to actually sign and consent to the setback. I don’t understand why nobody at council informed us of this, and why the builder didn’t know – surely we aren’t the first people to encounter this??? Maybe we should have done more “homework” but there has been so much to get out heads around and understand. We aren’t builders or developers! So to cut a long story short, Boutique sent the unoccupied neighbour the forms to sign. We took the forms to the neighbour we know, who signed straight away. Technically the neighbour has two weeks to respond, but Boutique gave him three… he didn’t respond! So the application was sent to Council, where they have now contacted him, giving him around another 3 weeks to respond!!! If he doesn’t respond, Council will review the application and make a decision, and lets face it – nothing happens over night with Council (only your rate increases) So yet again we are in the holding bay, with no control over anything.
Another part that saddens me is we signed on April 7, 2014. That’s over a year ago… I really thought we would have been close to moving in by now – I even said by Christmas this year, thinking that we would well and truly be in. However, now we won’t even make Christmas this year!!! Apparently, it’s never taken this long to get to site before – not the award I wanted to win.
We are also now paying rent, as living with my Mother In-Law had run it’s course… It’s great having our own space again, but I am now saying goodbye to buying anything new for the house. (But at this rate, the children will be applying for university and we will be looking to downsize!!!) To this point, the whole experience has been frustrating and I’m completely at a loss. I knew it would be stressful, but I really think it’s getting beyond a joke… Here’s hoping for some positive news in the coming weeks…
I feel your pain one year is an awfully long time.. we are also waiting for our council to approve the report and consent section 409 however we signed contracts in April of this year however we will also be lucky if our slab is poured by the end of this year. we were fortunate to have our neighbour’s sign… keep strong and positive surely it will sort its self our. We are always building a Airlie and I mean it just really depends on the council and the person’s you are dealing with . Hoping things move forward for you sooner rather than later
Thank you for your positive vibe!!! I had been warned that council’s are a nightmare, I guess I was hoping we would be ‘the lucky ones’, but no… Thankfully now it is all approved. My girlfriends, who have already built, keep reminding me that these feelings will quickly disappear once we are in our new house. I’m trying not to get too excited as there is still a long road ahead, but I just love the Airlie!!! Did you make any changes to the floor plan?
Just read about the approval happy days…Has Boutique given you a time frame to start date as I recall 4 to 6 weeks let’s hope they get moving.. We really didn’t change anything on floor plans we pretty much wanted everything that the wollert airlie had on display… So excited for you…
Also where abouts are you building the Airlie x
Where are you building your Airlie Andriana? We are in Ascot Vale.
We are building sunshine north river valley estate along the maribyrnong river not far from each other