Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 09, 2021 6:42 am Hello, So Masterton are in the process of lodging our paperwork to council and have asked us for a landscape plan. Anyone have any recommendations for one, and any tips on what to include, any sample designs? I haven't thought about the landscaping at all, ie, whether we should have a path to the front door, or just have it all as grass.. any help or tips much appreciated. Emma Re: Landscape Plan help 3Apr 15, 2021 8:43 pm Emma12 Hello, So Masterton are in the process of lodging our paperwork to council and have asked us for a landscape plan. Anyone have any recommendations for one, and any tips on what to include, any sample designs? I haven't thought about the landscaping at all, ie, whether we should have a path to the front door, or just have it all as grass.. any help or tips much appreciated. Emma We used BlueGum Design to prepare our landscape plan for our DA for Georges River Council. We prepared a basic sketch on the builders site plan showing location of grassed areas, decorative pebble areas & some plants and sent it to BlueGum Design who added some details (like locations of clothesline, letterbox, bin storage) and prepared a couple of very professional drawings suitable for submission to council for the bargain price of $395. My 2c, be careful of what you put on the landscape plan. Council have almost no rules/requirements for landscaping, except perhaps limits on sealed areas, however whatever you voluntarily put on the landscape plan, council will expect you to follow through on. Georges River Council will put some standard wording in your approval like this (copied from our DA approval)... Landscape Plans - All landscape works shall be carried out in accordance with the approved landscape plans and specifications, drawn by Bluegum Design Ref No XXX and dated XX/XX/XX. The landscaping shall be maintained in accordance with the approved plans in perpetuity, subject to the following; a) The proposed plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities of plants shall be in accordance with the proposed plant schedule upon the landscape plan. If plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities cannot be sourced, Council shall be contacted for alternatives. b) If the plants are found to be faulty, damaged, dying or dead within twelve (12) months of planting then they must be replaced with the same species. If the trees are found dead before they reach a height where they are protected by Councils Tree Management Controls, they must be replaced with the same species and pot/bag size Completion of Landscape Works - All landscape works must be completed before the issue of the Final Occupation Certificate. In accordance with approved landscape plans and specifications, drawn by Bluegum Design Ref No XXX and dated XX/XX/XX. The landscaping shall be maintained in accordance with the approved plans in perpetuity, subject to the following - a) The proposed plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities of plants shall be in accordance with the proposed plant schedule upon the landscape plan. If plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities cannot be sourced, Council shall be contacted for alternatives. b) If the plants are found to be faulty, damaged, dying or dead within twelve (12) months of planting then they must be replaced with the same species. If the trees are found dead before they reach a height where they are protected by Councils Tree Management Controls, they must be replaced with the same species and pot/bag size Personally I think the words "in perpetuity" are yet another over reach from this council. Imagine your council trying to tell you what you can do with your garden... for ever!! Fortunately we had done our research and knew what to expect from them, so we put the bare minimum we thought we could get away with. Just the basics... letterbox, clothesline, bin storage, grass, some pebbles, ten lillypilly's for a hedge... and definitely no trees. After we get our occupancy certificate we're then going to do whatever the heck we want with our gardens. Re: Landscape Plan help 4Apr 15, 2021 9:17 pm robw17 Emma12 Hello, So Masterton are in the process of lodging our paperwork to council and have asked us for a landscape plan. Anyone have any recommendations for one, and any tips on what to include, any sample designs? I haven't thought about the landscaping at all, ie, whether we should have a path to the front door, or just have it all as grass.. any help or tips much appreciated. Emma We used BlueGum Design to prepare our landscape plan for our DA for Georges River Council. We prepared a basic sketch on the builders site plan showing location of grassed areas, decorative pebble areas & some plants and sent it to BlueGum Design who added some details (like locations of clothesline, letterbox, bin storage) and prepared a couple of very professional drawings suitable for submission to council for the bargain price of $395. My 2c, be careful of what you put on the landscape plan. Council have almost no rules/requirements for landscaping, except perhaps limits on sealed areas, however whatever you voluntarily put on the landscape plan, council will expect you to follow through on. Georges River Council will put some standard wording in your approval like this (copied from our DA approval)... Landscape Plans - All landscape works shall be carried out in accordance with the approved landscape plans and specifications, drawn by Bluegum Design Ref No XXX and dated XX/XX/XX. The landscaping shall be maintained in accordance with the approved plans in perpetuity, subject to the following; a) The proposed plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities of plants shall be in accordance with the proposed plant schedule upon the landscape plan. If plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities cannot be sourced, Council shall be contacted for alternatives. b) If the plants are found to be faulty, damaged, dying or dead within twelve (12) months of planting then they must be replaced with the same species. If the trees are found dead before they reach a height where they are protected by Councils Tree Management Controls, they must be replaced with the same species and pot/bag size Completion of Landscape Works - All landscape works must be completed before the issue of the Final Occupation Certificate. In accordance with approved landscape plans and specifications, drawn by Bluegum Design Ref No XXX and dated XX/XX/XX. The landscaping shall be maintained in accordance with the approved plans in perpetuity, subject to the following - a) The proposed plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities of plants shall be in accordance with the proposed plant schedule upon the landscape plan. If plant species, pot/ bag size and quantities cannot be sourced, Council shall be contacted for alternatives. b) If the plants are found to be faulty, damaged, dying or dead within twelve (12) months of planting then they must be replaced with the same species. If the trees are found dead before they reach a height where they are protected by Councils Tree Management Controls, they must be replaced with the same species and pot/bag size Personally I think the words "in perpetuity" are yet another over reach from this council. Imagine your council trying to tell you what you can do with your garden... for ever!! Fortunately we had done our research and knew what to expect from them, so we put the bare minimum we thought we could get away with. Just the basics... letterbox, clothesline, bin storage, grass, some pebbles, ten lillypilly's for a hedge... and definitely no trees. After we get our occupancy certificate we're then going to do whatever the heck we want with our gardens. Thank you so much Robw17. We are also under George's River council, and also went with BlueGum. They seem a bit unsure on what council would or wouldnt approve and have included quite alot of trees and plants in our landscape plan, in particular 1 big tree in the front yard and one in the back. They said its because we are removing 4 trees (3 tall ones which obstruct the build) and 1 small one at the front. I'm quite hesitant about having these huge trees in our plan as they can grow to 8m, and definitely want to have as less as possible on the plans May I ask was your plan approved first go or was there abit of back and forth, i'm just concerned about it causing delays with submission to council. Many thanks Emma Re: Landscape Plan help 5Apr 15, 2021 10:06 pm Our DA, including the landscape plan, was approved first go. The only back and forth we had was in regard to stormwater, but that was all resolved prior to the DA being submitted. Note the conditions I shared in my previous post that you will get from council for the trees... if they appear on the approved landscape plan you'll be stuck with them forever. After our DA was submitted, the council planning officer advised that he wanted to visit site to see it first hand so I arranged to meet him there and we talked through the plans. The only thing he raised about the landscape plan was the fact that we had no front fence, but when I pointed out that our neighbour next door and another across the road also didn't have a front fence, he dropped the issue. In regards to the front fence, we may install one... but like the rest of the landscape plan we just didn't want to have to get council approval for it, or have to complete it for the occupancy certificate.... fences can be done later as exempt development. There's no council rules about having to have trees on your property but they sometimes make it a condition of tree removal approval to plant replacements elsewhere on the property. If it were me, I'd leave the trees off the landscape plan and see if council tell you to plant any... which they'd probably do by just adding a condition to the DA approval. Re: Landscape Plan help 6Apr 16, 2021 8:36 am robw17 Our DA, including the landscape plan, was approved first go. The only back and forth we had was in regard to stormwater, but that was all resolved prior to the DA being submitted. Note the conditions I shared in my previous post that you will get from council for the trees... if they appear on the approved landscape plan you'll be stuck with them forever. After our DA was submitted, the council planning officer advised that he wanted to visit site to see it first hand so I arranged to meet him there and we talked through the plans. The only thing he raised about the landscape plan was the fact that we had no front fence, but when I pointed out that our neighbour next door and another across the road also didn't have a front fence, he dropped the issue. In regards to the front fence, we may install one... but like the rest of the landscape plan we just didn't want to have to get council approval for it, or have to complete it for the occupancy certificate.... fences can be done later as exempt development. There's no council rules about having to have trees on your property but they sometimes make it a condition of tree removal approval to plant replacements elsewhere on the property. If it were me, I'd leave the trees off the landscape plan and see if council tell you to plant any... which they'd probably do by just adding a condition to the DA approval. Thank you so much for your input, really makes a difference having someone whos been through this - we're considering changing our plans now, and will probably include a walkway to the porch (we previously had it . We also will have a fence at the front, automatic one, but wasn't sure about how it would impact the footpath gate with the driveway sliding part. We'd since seen a few houses who had been able to do this, so will change our plans to reflect this - at the moment theres a lot of cement (as BlueGum said we could go from cement to grass, hence as we were undecided we had a large area as cement) - arghh so messy! Would you have your landscape plan on hand if you don't mind sharing? Re: Landscape Plan help 7Apr 17, 2021 9:22 am Emma12 Would you have your landscape plan on hand if you don't mind sharing? Sure...I've added our landscape plan at the bottom of the first post in my build thread... viewtopic.php?p=1874850#p1874850 Landscape Design Parramatta We have been doing a large amount of landscape design work in Sydney… 0 3 Need advice on the backyard plan above. Should I excavate and cut all of the dirt to level with the house slab or semi-excavate as per photo above? Both left and right… 0 24830 Thanks very much! And would the landscaper/contractor generally involve the engineer or is that something the client would do? Thanks for your help 2 10005 |