FIRST HOME – METRICON WINCHESTER 28

We hoped to be in by now too. Unfortunately building is never as quick as we'd like.

Yes, I hope you can move in before Christmas and have your Christmas in your beautiful home! We are hoping to move in before February, fingers crossed

1 July 2018 - Day 14

Earthwork and plumbing seems almost finished.





Hopefully slab pouring will be on schedule. Waiting for SM to inform any more delay.

Another day of delay for our slab pouring. Hopefully tomorrow everything goes smoothly. We are lucky that our private inspector has called the concretor this morning before heading down to the site.

15 July 2018 - 27 days (Week 4)

Frame has started! It is scheduled to be completed by next week with roof up!

20 July 2018 - Day 32 (Week 5)

Our Site Manager has been so kind to send us a picture of our house progress! He said the truss will be up today! 😊

windows in already!

Yes, we are super excited! Hope to see the roof up and our SM will be kind enough to send us another pic! 😜

27th July 2018 - Day 39 (Week 6)

We have our frame stage inspection on Wednesday morning and our inspector has done us a favour to take a few pictures of the progress to show us besides the report. No major issues. Truss is up but roof still not up yet. This week seems a bit slow in the progress and we haven't got any schedule when will the next stage going to start. Invoice for frame was sent to us on Tuesday. Hope they can speed up the work.

Hi Kimmykim, looking forward to watching your build progress! I see that you had to get a planning permit. Can I ask why it was needed and how long it took your council to approve it? We think we will need one with Knox Council and am wondering how much time it will add to the permit process before the build can start. thanks!

Most new estates require one, not sure about existing areas. Ours was pretty quick.

Our land was previously subdivided from a bigger piece of land and the previous owner had an Sec 173 agreement with the council. The agreement stated that any changes affecting the original approved planning must be submitted to council for re-approval. Besides, we have easement on our left and rear side.
It took us almost 5 months before we get our planning approval. The reason was our buildable area has become tight due to the easement on both sides and we had a few hiccups on our plan which required a few times of amendments before it was approved.
I believe if your house design doesn't need to have garage as wall boundary and the build is nothing near the easement, it will be straightforward then. I reckon the most it will take about 3 months. Once the planning permit is down, all the others move very fast. Hope this helps!😊

Thank you for such a detailed response! Yes, we are in a similar position. We are part of a subdivision where one large block of land was divided into 22 residential blocks. We also have a Section 173 agreement that needs to be abided by. Council said it should take 60 days for planning permit as long as no further info is needed or no issues arise. We do have our garage on boundary and rear shed/water tank is just in front of rear easement, but I don't think there is anything major that will jump out. We have been pretty careful to ensure we meet all requirements even when considering the build. Glad yours has progressed well once permits were received. Fingers crossed for us!

We felt so stressed at the beginning as we didn't know what to expect. But we are so excited to see the progress now. So don't feel discouraged. Things will work out for you eventually. By then, you will be happily posting your dream home progress real soon! 😊

haha! I hear you - we are in the stressed/frustrated period right now! But from what I have seen from this forum, construction moves along quickly once we get there. thank you!

You are most welcome! 😊

Hi Kimmykim, are you able to share roughly how much your town planners charged you for applying for planning permits? We have just received a quote from M's suggested town planners and it is much more than I would have guessed (although I had no idea) - a little over $6000 include GST. I'm not sure if this is standard, or on the high side.... We are in Melbourne.

We applied the planning permit ourselves and we paid the council planning application fees around $1,200 but the fees depends on your build cost. After that when we got to know that we need to submit bush fire statement, we engaged a town planner which we paid $2,900 inclusive the report plus GST. Definitely is less than $6,000. If you don't have any building restriction issues and you have time to liaise with council yourself, I would reckon to do it yourself.
Let me know if you need more information. I don't mind to share. 😊

We are in Melbourne too!

I mean we are building in Melbourne but we are living in Darwin. I was calling and coordinating with the council from Darwin!