Time to call them and raise hell! Go J!

It's always nice to clean out, I sold about half our furniture when we moved into my Mum's -> it's good stress relief to spring clean!
Plus, it will be good at your friend's place - I'm not saying you are relieved of responsibility, but I've found it's very nice to not have to worry about some house-related things when it's not your own place. (e.g. bills, maintenance, lawns, etc).

Are you taking everything with you, or getting a storage unit?

Hey JJ's:)
Just to let you know that we are still waiting too. We did get rejected though and have had to submit to a different department for approval but still. Hope you hear some good news soon!

Hi Ally, we're putting most of our things in storage, but taking a few important things like the bed, tv and fridge with us to our friends' place. We've also been trying to sell most of our furniture on gumtree because we'd really like to have new furniture once we move to our own place and there is no sense in paying for the extra storage if we're not intending to keep them.

Leighlou, I did check in on your thread the other day and noticed your council dramas...how frustrating! It seems part and parcel of the whole process though, and those who do not experience any dramas or delay must have magical powers unbeknownst to them! I hope it all goes more smoothly for you from now on.

My DP called up the council today and spoke to the officer assigned to our application. It has been referred to the Health Dept. to ensure that it's complying with the requirements of the Noise Impact Assessment (due to our proximity to the fwy)...it was only referred today, and apparently will take another week or so to come back to City of Cockburn. Other than that, nothing has really happened, and nothing will happen until it comes back from the Health Dept. Also, in other thrilling news, our assessor is due to go on annual leave for 2 weeks beginning Friday and he is unsure if his workload will managed by another officer in his absence. Great.

At the point of thinking we should withdraw our application and resubmit...it might be dealt with more efficiently

I'm glad that things at work aren't stressful right now, it's a relief to be there so that I'm not getting consumed by house worries all the time and I have other things to distract me.

Wow, they don't really want to hurry anything for you, do they? Frankly, by this point, I'd be putting in an official complaint. Since it was put in 20 March, and apparently won't be done for another 3 weeks, that makes 11 weeks! Almost 3 months! WTF!

I'm sorry about the stress it must be doing to you I know the feeling! It's horrible to be at work and be worrying about more than a few things at a time.

I've found researching interior decorating to be very therapeutic and by that, I mean I 'google' furnishings and furniture

I would be putting in an official complaint too... i was reading your thread Leighlou and that seemed to be what they needed!

Its just ridiculous! And you should not be penalised because someone is on annual leave!

OMG if it was me, if one of my employees is away then I do their job!

If my application gets submitted and you still havent heard I will call them and tell them to let you take their spot because thats just not fair!

However you should be well and truly done by then!

Don't you just hate waiting on councils!! Are you waiting on just your building licence or your planning approval as well? If you already have planning approval, then they are telling you porkies about being treated under the 'old' system. There are transitional arrangements in the new act where if an application for a building licence was made but not decided when the new act came into effect on 02/04/12 that the application must be dealt with as if it is an uncertified application and dealt with within 25 workings days of the commencement date of the new act. If you are waiting on planning approval, the council should also have a time limit. The City of Armadale has 60 days (or 90 if advertising is required) to decide on planning applications. I'm not sure if this is law or just guidelines set by each council. Either way, you have been waiting a long time and shouldn't have to wait longer just because someone is going on holidays! Maybe try to find out if they have to stick to certain timeframes without letting them know who you are and if you find out the should have approved within a certain time then you would be well within your rights to start demanding it be approved ASAP or threaten to lodge a complaint.

Good luck

SB, I'm not entirely sure...but from what I've been told the numerous times we've spoken to ppl at the council, it seems that nothing happened to our application until a couple of days ago, and that it had been sitting in a job queue untouched by the assigned officer. I'm thinking that means we're waiting on both planning and building approvals.

Sounds like you're right on top of interpreting the legislation (I really hope you're not enjoying reading the Building Act! hahah)

I'm thinking about what I want to do next about all of this...I feel like it might be time to put something in writing to them.

We're going to have to award a prize to the person who ends up waiting the longest with their council, at the rate we're all going.

Wow almost 8 weeks! Id be furious!

Im in the process of sorting out my land in Ellenbrook at the moment, im dreading putting in for approvals. This is my first house im building by myself.. Its all so new, and scary!

I love the design of your house and the colours you have chosen are fairly similar to what im thinking. The picture above really helps to put them together when my brain cant!
Look forward to seeing the progress pics... When the council get their act together!

I have to admit that it does make slightly better reading than the Tax Act Nah, after having various conflicting info from the council and builders I managed to find a very informative fact sheet that summed it all up in a few pages

I reckon if would be worth putting something in writing because making you wait like that and putting things on hold is just not right. If any business did that, they would lose customers so the councils should not be able to get away with it!

Welcome, Echo

I hope you find this forum to be very helpful and inspirational for you...or at the very least, a good way to kill some time if you're ever bored at work! Which part of Ellenbrook is your block? I used to live in Charlotte's Vineyard...I really love Ellenbrook. DP and I put an offer on a house about a year ago, it was to be our first home, but things didn't work out because we needed the in-laws to be guarantors for loan and they didn't meet the bank's requirements at the time.

There are so many new things coming up in the area too...jealous of how close you'll be to the new Masters store.

Good luck, building your own home is quite an experience

Theres going to be a masters store in ellenbrook!? That just made my day lol!
This forum is great, I cant keep off it, so much inspiration.
My dad has gone guarantor for me, it really was the only way I could do it on my own.

Ive bought land in the new estate calles Altis. It was released about a month ago. So they reckon it wont be titled untill august... If the rain holds off a bit.
I work shift work, longs hours so the forum is great to kill alot of time and keep me awake.

Look forward to seeing your progress, how exciting!

Hmmm...have been trying to call City of Cockburn to check in on the building application but the phone line has been engaged all day?!!!

Thats not a good sign at all!

I managed to get in contact with someone eventually - I think they may have been having some issues with their switchboard today. Pretty much got told that I could call back in a week to check if the Health Department had responded to the referral sent on 7 May....and only then would they call the Health Department for me to 'hurry things along'. Not quite good enough. I called the Health Dept as soon as I put the phone down from CoC. Spoke to a lovely man who is now investigating what is going on because he seems to think that this seems rather unusual and is not standard procedure when it comes to noise assessments. He will be calling me back today hopefully.

Good idea, call the source yourself! Hopefully he calls back ASAP and gives you some info!

why was the noise assessment only sent on the 7th may :O

you are nearly at 2 months waiting for approvals!

I think 7th May was the day that our assigned surveying officer picked it up from his In tray.



I haven't been in contact with SPH recently, as I doubted they they knew any more info than what CoC was already telling me. I might call their 'Shire Department' tomorrow.

I'd call SPH's shire's department and have a b*tch to them about it - they should be the ones hurrying the council up! I work in a tax office and I wouldn't expect our clients to call the ATO themselves about their tax return - we do it for them!

Have you been on the CoC website and seen all the applications?

I think you can look up any application!

and see how many they are getting approved.....

interesting

http://masterview.cockburn.wa.gov.au/MasterViewUI/modules/applicationmaster/default.aspx?page=search

Yep Jen, I'm on the website all the time, monitoring how quickly other applications are getting approved (I've been semi obsessively doing that since I knew they'd received our application) Fortunately (or unfortunately), ours doesn't seem like an isolated case. There are so many submitted around the same time as ours which are still waiting approval because "Further information is required from applicant". Someone in the planning section told me that the online system is not in real time, so you can't really trust what is showing up on there...which is kind of annoying.