Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Mar 29, 2010 6:15 pm Hi all. We live in Sydney and are building a house Anyway, one of our approval requirements is that we build ALL our boundary fences to the standard in their Stormwater Management development control as our entire block of land is considered an "Overland flow area" According to that control, all fences within an overland flow path must be build with permeable gap at the bottom of the fence, 300mm ABOVE the calculated overland flow water depth. In my case the calculated depth is 50mm which means from ground level the ENTIRE fence around my property needs to be 350mm above ground level. Have any of you ever seen a fence anywhere built like this? If you have I'd love a picture because I'm having a very hard time picturing one that would actually accomplish fencing off my block and keeping my pets in. Never mind that this is an established 60 year old neighborhood and all the rest of the neighbors have regular fences. This is a standard suburban dwelling in standard suburban neighborhood. I can't believe the crap I have to put up with!:) Greg Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 2Mar 29, 2010 10:12 pm Uh huh. Suuuuuuure they will love us. I'm sure it will be interesting. Not so sure about that attractive part. Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 3Mar 29, 2010 11:26 pm Sounds interesting. I hope any future water flow is away from your house and not towards it. I have seen colourbond fencing with large gaps underneath them once they had been installed. Decking, moss rocks, paving, grass, garden could block the space/view in the future? Hopefully also stopping pets/rodents/escapees entering or leaving , isn't the council concerned about that? Rottweilers on the loose? Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 4Mar 30, 2010 6:56 am Think outside the square, you say a permeable gap of 350 mm. That doesn't mean no fence at all, find out what there spec's are. Can you use horizontal slats for one example? Landscape Design & Construction http://cherub.squarespace.com/ Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 5Mar 30, 2010 7:07 am I agree with cherub...you need to find out what's an acceptable material. I'm sure there are plenty of suitable options that will stop pets escaping, but whether they're satisfactory to you from a visual point of view may be a whole other thing. A few come to mind: - Timber fence with gaps between palings - small enough to keep dogs in, but wide enough to allow water through. - Tubular steel, similar to pool fencing. Secure and pet-proof, but no privacy. Some hedge plantings could fix that though, with shadecloth or other permeable fabric as a temporary solution till the plants grow. - Standard solid fence with the required 300mm gap underneath, filled with some kind of steel mesh or latticework.... even low plantings would hide that, and if it was properly constructed, pets wouldn't be able to get through. That's just off the top of my head; I'm sure there are better solutions out there. Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 6Mar 30, 2010 7:44 am Thanks Kek, those are all things I thought of and IMHO none of them will look good (with maybe the exception of hedges). I know what is acceptable already and gaps between palings is not. It has to be something like pool fencing or the like where the grand majority of it does not restrict flow. Large open mesh like cage wire covering the area is acceptable but not shadecloth. The hedges I don't want, as I do not want to constantly maintain my entire fence. We're talking an 800 sq metre block so about 100 lineal metres of fenceline. Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 7Mar 30, 2010 7:57 am Hmm, no shadecloth..... they're not very flexible then, are they? Privacy plantings don't have to be in a formal hedge style, so constant clipping isn't necessary. You can just plant shrubs quite close together so their foliage creates a nice thick screen. Something a bit informal like this could work: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Of course, it would take time to grow, but if you picked some super-fast growing shrubs for the back, you could maybe have full fence cover in a couple of years. What about hardwood slat screens inside the boundary, to give privacy to the house and outdoor entertaining area? The space between the screens and the fence could be used for utility type stuff: clothes line, compost bins, veggies, whatever.... Or you could just plant behind them, so you'd have glimpses of greenery beyond. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 8Apr 03, 2010 6:59 am If you want to build a "solid" structure, I have seen grey masonry blocks turned on their side for the bottom few rows. Picnic Point - Subdivision and DA Approved -On Hold - March 2012 Georges Fair - Moved in Dec 2013 PP - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=25747 Re: My council and their crazy fencing rules 9Apr 04, 2010 8:47 am Interesting suggestion, I'll give it a think. I had 28m2 of engineered pavers laid six months back and it was difficult to find someone not taking the pi$$. Internet suggested it should be $85-100/m2 to lay them.… 3 12387 1 1923 "is it exempt or do I need to get permission from council" Call your Council and ask them 1 1559 |