Hi -
Ours is a corner block of land that we decided to subdivide for a new build while keeping the existing house. The original block size is 870sqm to be split into 2 lots - lot1 existing house of 600 sqm and lot2 new build of 270sqm(both houses will be facing the street as wide frontage).. We used a Town Planner and a Planning Permit application was submitted to the council.
The Council has indicated their approval of the application however have included condition that a payment equivalent to 5% of land should be made to council as contribution for public open space. This has come as a shock as when we initially started talks with the Town Planner to consider availalable options he was clear that the block can only subdivided into maximum 2 blocks due to street setback restrictions applicable and also keeping in line with other houses on the street. All we wanted to do is a simple subdivision to construct a new house while retaining the existing home.
Its absurd that the council considers that the block has potential to be split into 3 lots (even for the lot2 planning application we had to change the design a few times to increase street and boundary setback and therefore reducing size of built up area of new build from original design). The town planner is equally flabbergasted as they still think 3 reasonable builds cannot be constructed in our block 870 sqm. Infact they mentioned that another application that has bigger land area than us and for 3 town houses had been knocked back by council. (I know there are some councils of high density areas that can do 3 or 4 builds in that area but not ours).
Can anyone suggest what our course of action could be? The townplanner said he will try to mock up designs for 3 builds to go back to the council to demonstrate impracticability. If this does not work, what are other options.. Success rates of VCAT appeals against council I am made aware are not encouraging. The 5% contribution that is being asked is a huge amount for us (approx 40K) and with no gurantee of a reasonable outcome for us.
Hope someone can share any ideas / experiences...