Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 09, 2010 10:03 am Hi all.. I was going through the design guidelines of the estate where we are planning to buy a block of land and noticed the following point under "Home Setback":
Side boundaries must be a minimum of 1.2 meters. Under "Front Facade", it says: The external face of any wall that has a street frontage must be constructed with approved cement rendered finish which is also applied to an area on each intersecting side wall of not less that 1 meter in width and covering the entire vertical height of such side wall for that 1 meter width. I'm worried that the side setbacks might reduce the width of the house + garage significantly (lot is 16m wide) and the front facade rendering will increase the cost significantly for the build. What are your views ? Is that a standard across the new estates or can this be negotiated with the estate? Thanks in advance.. EDIT: We are buying in Heartlands Estate, Tarneit Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 2Sep 09, 2010 10:11 am First of all, which estate is it for? I know an estate near me requires front rendering.. be prepared for $4,000 plus for that. My estate doesn't require rendering but some people haven't even looked at the guidelines and have gotten away with things like colourbond roofing where we are meant to only have tiled roofing. The side setback shouldn't matter too much.. 1 meter isn't really that big.. I'm guessing they don't want houses touching your neighbours. I hope that helps.. Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 3Sep 09, 2010 10:16 am Well put simply, find a house design that is 13.6m wide to comply with the covanents. If you have already got a house in mind that is wider than that then yes, you will have to trim it or get a new design. And render is generally not a huge expense and a lot of builders include it anyway unless you are building a fairly low spec house. For my place it would be an extra $1250 to render the front. And the covanents are the covanents - when you agree to buy the land, you agree to the covanent as part of the contract, so no they are not negotiable. All estates have their own covanents and quirks - just make sure you know what they are and are comfortable with them before signing on the dotted line. Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 5Sep 09, 2010 10:43 am As Victoria and Huggy B have said; covenants are binding (they are actually noted on the Title to your land) and will vary between estates. By agreeing to purchase the land you agree to abide by the covenants. If you fail to comply with them the developer is perfectly entitled to make you do so. However most developers will not actually inspect their estates regularly to ensure compliance so, as Victoria has said, people do get away with a certain amount. The bottom line is, if you don't agree with the covenants then buy some land in another estate. Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 6Sep 09, 2010 11:12 am So what you guys are saying is that there's no way they can ignore this guideline for just one block of land if we get our Solicitors involved before signing the contract. Right ?
Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 7Sep 09, 2010 11:39 am If you've signed a land contract, you've also signed that you will abide by the design guidelines in there. Ours says something along the lines of if we don't abide to the design guidelines, they can actually take legal action against us. Plus it's possible they wouldn't approve your design in the first place. Unfortunately, like the others have said, when you buy in an estate you're also agreeing to their guidelines. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37229 - our Iris 4! Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 8Sep 09, 2010 2:00 pm baronx So what you guys are saying is that there's no way they can ignore this guideline for just one block of land if we get our Solicitors involved before signing the contract. Right ? You could try it, but they'll probably turn around and refuse to sell you the land. Best of luck. Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 9Sep 09, 2010 2:35 pm You can certainly get your solicitor or conveyancer to ask the vendors of the land if they will change or relax the covenants but normally your answer will just be "no" (with no negotiations entered into). Basically the sellers know that they have you over a barrel; either you want that block of land (with attached covenants) or you don't. And with the way land sales are at the moment; if you don't want the block there are probably a number of other people who do. It doesn't give you any bargaining power unfortunately.... I had a similar experience when I purchased land; as the subdivision was not going to be finalised for more than 6 months I asked to pay 5% deposit instead of 10% (as the money was just going to sit in a real estate agent's trust account in the mean time with no one getting any interest from it). The vendors refused so I just had to "build a bridge" (and get over it ) as I still wanted the block of land. Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 10Sep 09, 2010 11:46 pm in my estate there are similar guidelines, pm me your email address and i can send you a few example photos of what they are looking for. We decided to go with it, so far happy. Ours is also 16m. We found a display home that suited the corner block and ran with it as it appealed to us and ticked all our boxes Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 11Sep 09, 2010 11:53 pm Also, 1.2m is very standard unless you're in a medium density estate. Any narrower and you can hear your neighbours breaking wind in the morning... SK Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34120 Handover 23 Dec 11 Squatting 21 Dec 11 Fixed 12 Oct 11 Plastered 31 Aug 2011 Framed 7 June 2011 Site Start 7 Feb 2011 Land Titled 18 Jan 2010 Land Deposit 25 Jun 2009 Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 13Sep 10, 2010 10:24 am Normally your garage can be zero lined on the boundary. Its only habitable walls that need to be outside that zone. p.s. double story houses have different envelopes as well (if your building one). Re: Design Guidelines - Side boundary / Facade 14Sep 10, 2010 11:27 am Eve Dweller Normally your garage can be zero lined on the boundary. That what i was thinking, but the DG doesn't say anything about this. We are going to see a builder this weekend so i'll confirm this with them. thanks Chippy, i hope they have applied sealer but i am doubt to be honest, so i am gonna do this job after handover. 8 16322 You should be able to encase the sewer but you will need it designed and approved and access to lot 580 to do the work 2 17194 In WA zero lot is actually zero lot. We build 10mm in from the boundary. My house and my neighbours house have garages that sit only 20mm apart. When I had our roof done… 3 7106 |