JG King modified Heywood - Landscaping

Ohh bank i really feel for you. Ita turning into as big a saga as our brick work was and that sucks
I agree keep persisting and dont give in it might take a bit longer but in the long run its what you want.
Gosh you deserve a super smooth build after all this fiasco

We have a few questions to ask tomorrow. Starting with why is the building surveyor that we nominated by name not the one handling our build (same company, different dude). The one we appointed told us he saw no issue with the pier as it is holding up the right side of the porch. The developer and builder boss also spoke to this guy to work everything out. Now this dude that works under him does. Frustrating!!! Seems we were all talking to the wrong person.

At this point I've pretty much accepted that we have lost, just not sure what to next. We might investigate detaching the pier from the house and extending the porch, even though we would stick further into the setback this would be ok because it's not attached, how ridiculous! We would still need dispensation for the height though, I just don't trust that the council wouldn't find another reason not to process.

The builder has indicated that they will make changes in order to come up with something we can live with (and they can get a building permit for) but I think messing with the facade might be too much.

Hopefully you get some answers and you can deal with the surveyor you nominated! Good luck!

We've been around the merry-go-round again this week. The builder hasn't been particularly helpful, they wouldn't have a bar of talking to the surveyor again. We wanted this done because he had a different interpretation that the council guy. Eventually we rang him ourselves and he was still firmly on our side and had some choice words to say about the council guy (that made my week!). He offered to meet the council guy with us to try and make him see reason on the whole porch vs house matter, however when we rang council to try to organise this he came up with another reason he wouldn't process the application! Apparently the legal letters didn’t have a provision in them for us to get report and consent for above 3.6m as is allowed in reg 409. Of course we said we will have them changed to which he said he still won’t process it! We communicated this to our development manager who rang council again but he wouldn’t budge. We also found out at this point that the developer has tried to change the MCP to allow up to 4.5m for future releases so that this doesn’t happen again however council won’t allow them to. So it seems that they were never going to allow a report and consent on 409 anyway! Why they told the developer that they would 4 months ago I will never understand.

So the plans are at drafting at the moment then we will go back to council again for the boundary wall height consent. Hopefully this can be done in parallel to the developer approval, water authority permit for the earthworks to go over the easement and engineering (assuming they’ll need to look at the retaining wall again). The council guy has verbally assured us that there won’t be any issue with the boundary wall height as long as our neighbours don’t have a major objection, but clearly we can’t trust what comes out of his mouth.

We were keen to remove 600mm of the north side of the dining/living to expand the north side yard but the builder was very discouraging and seemed determined to throw every roadblock he could at every idea we’ve had. This very different tune to what we got 4 months ago when we considered cancelling the contract during the cooling off period. I completely understand why they are keen to keep it moving forward but it would have been nice if they could have considered it a bit more from our position. Hopefully they can start repairing the relationship by keeping things moving quickly now. The manager told us he could have the drawings done in a day or 2 (and hell might freeze over too). Fingers crossed I’m wrong.

There’s a bit of action happening around our block now, still nothing either side or directly behind.

Oh you poor thing bank! The council guy sounds like a bl00dy ar5e!!!!

Hope you get a solution very soon

Bugger. The porch seems so trivial in the scheme of things.

I am just gut renched for you bank. This is the crappiest situation and so trivial its ridiculous. I cant believe the back and forth of it all and he wont approve anything for you.
Im sure youve wanted to give up on more than 1 occasion.

Oh gosh 😔, I am gutted for you both. This is so unfair on yous. Is there anyone higher up that yous can speak to?

What if you suggest pulling the plug? Do you think they will be a bit more understanding, and listen to your suggestions?

Building is emotionally and mentally tough enough as it is. No one should have to go through this too

Thanks for the sympathy guys. We're gutted but moving on and looking forward. Most of the time I'm feeling pretty positive, unfortunately we keep having to relive the whole saga every time we see anybody or the phone rings. We need to have a party to gather everyone and just tell the story once

We have certainly thought about cutting our loses and walking away many times. We probably would have sold the block if we did, I don't think I could face going through another admin phase again anytime soon

We updated our landscape plan with the new setback for re-submission to the developer on the weekend. Just waiting on the plans from the builder now. ETA is tomorrow but in our experience it's rare for them to be done when they say so I'm trying not to get my hopes up. I'm worried that they will come back wrong and we'll have to go around again. Should be a simple case of moving everything back 590 and fixing a dimension that had popped off.

oh what a drama, hopefully this is now the turning point for you and you can actually get somewhere near breaking ground!

Hopefully! I have a serious case of regret this morning. I wish we hadn't let them push us around in regard to removing the bit from the north. I think I got out of the wrong side of the bed today. I hate that I feel this way towards the builder and we haven't even started yet.

I can feel you, but it's not too late if you really want it, push for it and see what can be done. Sometimes I think they relie on us being beaten and just accepting things, even though you aren't really happy.

I know the feeling, but when things start to improve you'll feel better towards them again. *hug* Hope everything works out and quickly!!

Day made! The drawings came back! And they have gone to council! Hubby says it's so cold outside because hell froze over . I stand corrected drafting can get things done ahead of their eta .

Looks like they have managed to keep the earthworks off the easement so hopefully no more permits required yay! I'm not sure how practical it will be with the cut so close to the alfresco but I guess we can deal with that later.

Great news bank! I have everything crossed for approval asap fir you

Wohoo that is great news . Fingers crossed for council.

Yippe that's great news now hope approval gpes through quickly there.

Council has let us know that the letters for our neighbours comments have gone out today! Yay! So glad it didn't take him weeks to look at it again. I found it very amusing that our admin bolded the bit of her email where she asked him to do it quickly . The neighbours have until the 21st to respond, fingers crossed they send it back sooner. Now the council guy has asked for our developer approved plans to be sent through , which of course we don't have because they were only resubmitted yesterday. We have emailed our contact at the developer to see if he has any influence to get it done quicker than the 2 weeks we are expecting.

The drawings also went straight from drafting to engineering yesterday. This time they have added the sewer pipe that is in our easement (presumably because we are closer now) however when we checked them last night we realised that they used the size and position of the pipe that is in our rear neighbours easement, not ours. Ours is a smaller pipe almost 3m down, theirs is only 1.35m down, so bit of a difference. Easy enough mistake to make but I'm sure the drafty will be kicking himself. Hopefully won't be an issue because it was correct on the first lot of engineering drawings but we have alerted them just in case. Some dimensions in the kitchen also jumped off again, must be a glitch in the matrix, i think this is the third time we've had trouble in the same spot .

We are hoping to be all done and have the building permit by the end of the month and the builder has confirmed that this is what they are aiming for as well

One step closer Bank...