We are building with Masterton in Sydney (Bankstown Council Area). It is a requirement of our Council (like most in Sydney) that we submit a landscape plan along with our DA and complete the landscaping before they will do the final approval before moving in. Our landscape architect was recommended by Masterton and we paid $440 for the plan. We were told that he couldn't give us an estimate of how much it would actually cost to do the landscaping, nor would it be likely for us to be able to get an estimate from anyone else until our plans were approved by Council.
My concern is that while we love our landscape plan, I'm starting to panic that this will cost us a fortune. As we're completely removing everything from the block, there are requirements around planting established trees and native plant requirements. Essentially, we are having a border around the back yard with grass in the middle and a native garden at the front which will essential border the site along with a garden strip along the front of the house, stopping short at the driveways (if that makes any sense).
This is our indicative planting schedule:
- 1 75L Jacaranda mimosifolia (Jacaranda)
2 x 75L Tristaniopsis laurina (Water Gum)
17 x 5L Acacia pubescens (Acacia)
17 x 5L Backhousia myrtifolia (Grey Myrtle)
13 x 5L Bursaria spinosa (Blackthorn)
9 x 5L Epacris purpurascens (Epacris)
9 x 5L Kunzea ambigua (Tick Bush)
6 x 5L Pittosporum revolutum (Hairy Pittosporum)
14 x 5L Syzygium sp.
14 x 150mm Dianella longifolia (Dianella)
10 x 150mm Dianella revoluta (Mauve Flax Lily)
9 x 150mm Hardenbergia violacea (Purple Twining Peas)
Our grass is specified as Kikuyu but we're getting Empire Zoysia.
I haven't been able to find out a lot of pricing information for these plants but what I have found scares me. The trees are around $200-300; the 150mm plants are around $8 each. Given the number of plants, we'll be running into thousands, without the labour or any grass.
I've just spoken to Council and they've advised the less detail on the plan the better, so I may be able to replace names with "Native Australian Plants" or something similar and it should be okay. Alternatively, if we do submit the landscape plan with the DA and it's approved, it becomes a legal document and we're legally requirement to plant what we said we would. Having said that, we were told Council is unlikely to actually count the number of plants or to notice if we substituted species.
I'm sceptical of either scenario and not sure what to do, short of redoing the landscape plan altogether. Which I doubt we can do anyway since we've gone through three revisions, it's been submitted to Masterton, and Masterton are doing our Final presentation plans for approval before submitting the DA.
Has anyone had experience with Council requirements on the type and number of plants to be planted? Any experience of Council inspections of the landscaping?
Nervous Nelly is getting Nervouser and Nervouser!