Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 25, 2009 3:33 am I'm a new joiner to this forum site and have found it quite interesting. HAS ANYONE MADE A SUCCESSFUL CLAIM FOR DISPENSATION OF THE FRONT SETBACK IN MONASH CITY? My husband and I bought a piece of land in an established surburb within the city of Monash, VIC - hooray ...but now we're having problems trying to get a house built on it. Our fav design (a PD home - no surprises there ) had to be abandoned owing to an easement along our land which could not be dug into. Now we have chosen a design by Dennis Family Homes and are happy to go forward but are having problems siting the house to our liking. It's been tedious and a pain in the butt! The min. front setback in Monash city is 7.6m. Our adjoining neighbours have theirs at 8m (from front wall to front boundary) and 7.6m (from garage to front boundary BUT from the first wall that isn't the garage wall, it's 3.9 metres). The DFH draftsman sited the proposed house at 8m from the front boundary - after taking into account the length of the house (almost 22m) and the cutline, we would only be left with a backyard strip of 1.2 deep to the back boundary! Naturally we were not happy with this. We have 2 young kids and would love to have them play in the security of the backyard. Siting the house at 7.6m is also not ideal since it would mean that our backyard strip becomes 1.6m. It turns out that we now have to apply for dispensation to Monash city to allow us to move our house forward to less than 7.6m from the front boundary - since we would like to have a bigger backyard of at least 6m deep. The VIC building regulations state that the average setback of the immediate adjoining properties would be our setback - which we calculated it to be 8m + 3.9m/2=5.9m. However, it would seem that where the average is less than 7.6m, than the average of the 5 properties on both sides are taken into account of as well! This of course doesn't work out well for us since the existing properties have a setback that appears (visually) to be more than 10m at least! Averaging these than brings us back to 7.6m which doesn't give us much of a backyard! Any replies would be helpful - at this time, I am quite despondent Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 2May 25, 2009 3:58 pm Setbacks rules can be a bit tough in established areas. I have a friend in Monash who said it is quite a tough Council when it comes to development. We come under Glen Eira and also wanted a lesser setback. The maximum they would allow us was 7.5 metres. Our original house on the land was 8 metres, but the neighbours on either side were 9 metres. They dont' take into account the pre-existing property setback. Glen Eira takes the average of the house on either side, so we had to apply for a dispensation. Our other issue was our portico was taken into account as well so our actual first room of the house is at 8 metres. We have so much frontyard, we do have 17 metres backyard still from back of house to fence but I would still have been happier to have a couple more metres in the back than the front, it's more usable (or I could have used that to make my loungeroom a bit bigger). I can understand though because ours is a 2 storey and bringing it much further out could cause a lot more overshadowing and it does have to be fair on the other neighbours. The problem is that the only way you can get a firm answer about the dispensation is to apply for one. I know Glen Eira Council won't commit to anything until the plans are in and neighbours consulted. That's the other thing, because it is a dispensation, they will consult your neighbours and call for any objections regarding the setback. They take a lot of things into account. When you say the first wall is 3.9 metres, do you mean that's the setback on the other neighbours house. If so, you might have a chance because as you say your average would be 5.9 metres. That still won't give you the 6 metres in the backyard though and my guess is that's the absolute maximum they will give you for a setback if they give you that, being they will have to take into account the neighbour with 8 metre setback and how your house would affect them. The thing is I don't think you are going to get your 6 metres of backyard because that would mean your setback (basing this on 7.6 metres with 1.6 metres backyard) would be about 3 metres or a touch more and I would really doubt they would allow it. Even with a 5.9 metre setback you won't get the 6 metres. I don't think you would necessarily have to worry about the properties at 10 metres, you could argue that one. I doubt you would be overshadowing them or overlooking but who knows I guess. Established suburbs are a minefield and existing neighbours often don't take kindly to development so the council may not be your only problem. I really hope you have some luck with this but I think you have to prepare yourself. It might be best to go in and speak to someone at the Council and find out what your chances may be. In my experience our Council has been pretty helpful but it's a matter of taking into account everyone's properties not just the one being built. They will only guide you though, nothing is definite until they get the application. Although not sure if they have some kind of pre-approval process, ours didn't. I know it's hard not too but try not to get stressed about it. You can only try and see what happens. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 3May 25, 2009 5:24 pm Hi Photogirl, thanks for your reply. I've been down to the Monash City Town & Planning division 4 times now. They've been very helpful todate but as you said, no definitive answer or comittment is given until an application is submitted. I went down to the council today to have my understanding of their guidelines confirmed, i.e. since the average of the 2 adjoining properties' setbacks = to 5.9m (hence being less than the 7.6m minimum), the average of the next 5 properties (on both sides) is also taken into account. my husband begged to differ! So this means that on one side of my property, I will have to ask 4 more residences round the corner! Our land sits one away from the corner (the corner plot is currently under construction). Our neighbour on the corner plot (both our plots were the result of a subdivision of the original plot after demolition) has managed to comply with the setback rules only because she chose the other side (fronting the next road) as her front setback (even though this would be the side of her house) and the other side of the road (where our front setback would be) as her side setback (council: 3m side setback - her side setback is 3.9m). Since this will be quite an arduous and time consuming task of collating information, I will probably do a walkabout and knock on neighbours' doors to get their comments so that I can submit these as a supplimentary evidence (hoping it to be positive and in favour of us) to the dispensation application. Once I get the resiting of the proposed house showing the lesser setback, I will also take it to the neighbours for their acknowledgement and signing. At least by the time my dispensation application is advertised, all neighbours would be aware of the situation.The 5 neighbouring properties on the other side of my land (the ones with setbacks visually at least 10m) all have plot dimensions of 45m long (so they still have a reasonably big back garden (barring one property which is a development of 3-4 houses I think). The only obstacle in this is the fact that not all residents are owner occupiers! So I'll have to see how many of the 10 properties are actual owners to get their consent. At this time, I am thinking that the 5 neighbouring properties with the deep setback can be overcome since a little after our land, there's a bend in the road and you don't actually see any houses until you've driven past our house and the neighbour next door and that the siting of our house of our house more forward wouldn't affect them very much. Actually, after taking into account the angle of the land to the main street and what we are asking for, only less than a quarter of the front corner of our garage encroaches into the 7.6m min setback, and the front portico encroaches in by 80cm but the rest of the house sits well above the 7.6 metre line. Yes, fingers rossed. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 4May 25, 2009 6:33 pm Hi TC2000 It's a tedious task this setback business. You probably already have checked but if not, before you head out to the neighbours find out from Council exactly what the procedure is for getting sign off from residents. In our case Council told us to just get the resident to sign plans (I only had to go to 2 neighbours). One would, one wouldn't. Took it into Council and they said "that's not the process". It was according to the person I spoke to on the phone. So that was a complete waste of time. They had a special form that had to be completed and then the owner also had to sign the form and a copy of the plan. So the neighbour who had signed was happy to go through the process again. Council sent the notification out to the other neighbour and they didn't reply at all, so we had to wait for the full 14 days for them to not even reply. I'm really waiting for the day they decide to build or sub-divide on their block (it's currently rented out), will be happy give them the same courtesy and grief. There is one benefit in having the Council do the work, they don't supply copies of the plan (well ours don't). If a resident wants to view them they have to go in and actually pay to copy them. So some residents won't even be bothered to do it. The other thing too is that the only thing the resident can object to is the setback, they don't get to put objections for anything else about the property because it doesn't require a planning permit. I think you need to weigh up which is the best option because some people on homeone have mentioned being nice to the neighbours and giving them all the details only to find it has been used against them. Sometimes the element of surprise can work more in your favour. If I had my time again I would ignore my builder and I would have had them draw the plans at the setback I wanted and submit it to Council. That way I could have pushed the boundaries to see what the absolute minimum was that I could get. I really think that council may have given us a lesser setback but I let the builder dictate. The thing is if you are happy to do this and possibly have to wear the cost then it may be worth it to see what Council is willing to give. I guess you have to weigh up if a bit more money and bit more delay is worth it to see if you can get a lesser setback. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 5May 25, 2009 8:18 pm Hi TC2000, we are also building with Monash council. We had also wanted to get our setback forward but ended up abandoning the idea as we are building with M and they keep charging more and more money the longer your contract takes to sign after the 5 month period and we were already at$3500 in late payments which we were not happy about! Luckily our block is 42m long so we still have a 12 metre backyard, but if I had such little amount of backyard as you i'd keep persevering until every avenue is exhausted. When I saw the council they said we had a good case for getting a setback brought forward as the ajoining properties were less than 7.6m and our balcony doesn't have a roof so they said would have more chance of getting it accepted. I am now trying to get a wider crossover with the council-they have said no to a 4-4.5m crossover twice-I have now sent another letter to the department head of the engineering dept-good luck, I know how frustrating it can be going through the process!!! Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 6May 25, 2009 10:22 pm jspitz Hi TC2000, we are also building with Monash council. We had also wanted to get our setback forward but ended up abandoning the idea as we are building with M and they keep charging more and more money the longer your contract takes to sign after the 5 month period and we were already at$3500 in late payments which we were not happy about! Luckily our block is 42m long so we still have a 12 metre backyard, but if I had such little amount of backyard as you i'd keep persevering until every avenue is exhausted. When I saw the council they said we had a good case for getting a setback brought forward as the ajoining properties were less than 7.6m and our balcony doesn't have a roof so they said would have more chance of getting it accepted. I am now trying to get a wider crossover with the council-they have said no to a 4-4.5m crossover twice-I have now sent another letter to the department head of the engineering dept-good luck, I know how frustrating it can be going through the process!!! Hi Jspitz, we would have had a longer block but for the fact that my part of the land (which we bought) was subdivided, hence one boundary length is 32m whereas the other side is 42m - otherwise we wouldn't have this problem with the setback and a bigger pool of house designs to choose from. My husband wants to go for the maximum push but I have my doubts - so now I am letting him deal with it cos' I am finding this all too frustrating. Whilst I think we can get away with the a small fraction of the garage encroaching into the 7.6m setback line, I am still not too sure about the portico (at least 80cm will encroach into the setback line) since ontop of the portico is a part of our bedroom and I think this would than be considered as the first front room. It's all too nerve wrecking. Regarding your vehicle crossover - my relocation application was approved but the width that I wanted (same as yours) 4.5m was not allowed. My neighbour (who is currently building her house next door - the other part of the subdivided land - hers and mine make the original parcel of land) was lucky enought to have a crossover width of 5m approved!!!! But hers was approved 2 years ago. The Monash engineer I spoke with (Tony Wright) said that 2 years ago they were less strict but now they have tightened up their flexibility - Did you get Monash council to do a quote for you? I still haven't received this yet from them since Mr wright said that he wanted to advise us on the bottom end of the crossover to make sure that we didn't hit the curb which is helpful of him to offer this at least. May I ask which area you're building in within Monash? Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 7May 25, 2009 10:36 pm photogirl Hi TC2000 It's a tedious task this setback business. You probably already have checked but if not, before you head out to the neighbours find out from Council exactly what the procedure is for getting sign off from residents. In our case Council told us to just get the resident to sign plans (I only had to go to 2 neighbours). One would, one wouldn't. Took it into Council and they said "that's not the process". It was according to the person I spoke to on the phone. So that was a complete waste of time. They had a special form that had to be completed and then the owner also had to sign the form and a copy of the plan. So the neighbour who had signed was happy to go through the process again. Council sent the notification out to the other neighbour and they didn't reply at all, so we had to wait for the full 14 days for them to not even reply. I'm really waiting for the day they decide to build or sub-divide on their block (it's currently rented out), will be happy give them the same courtesy and grief. There is one benefit in having the Council do the work, they don't supply copies of the plan (well ours don't). If a resident wants to view them they have to go in and actually pay to copy them. So some residents won't even be bothered to do it. The other thing too is that the only thing the resident can object to is the setback, they don't get to put objections for anything else about the property because it doesn't require a planning permit. I think you need to weigh up which is the best option because some people on homeone have mentioned being nice to the neighbours and giving them all the details only to find it has been used against them. Sometimes the element of surprise can work more in your favour. If I had my time again I would ignore my builder and I would have had them draw the plans at the setback I wanted and submit it to Council. That way I could have pushed the boundaries to see what the absolute minimum was that I could get. I really think that council may have given us a lesser setback but I let the builder dictate. The thing is if you are happy to do this and possibly have to wear the cost then it may be worth it to see what Council is willing to give. I guess you have to weigh up if a bit more money and bit more delay is worth it to see if you can get a lesser setback. Hi Photogirl, Thx for your info. It's a pain that Monash City uses existing properties setback...Am still mulling over whether we should start asking the neighbours now or just leave it to the council to do the legwork. Well, we don't mind paying for the dispensation application. As for the time delay - we've already been delayed with DFH just getting the contract issued so I've quite literally gone from 5th gear to 1st gear and almost to neutral gear now. My husband still doesn't seem to understand my concern particularly that relating to the portico (and masterbedroom bay window/alcove which is above the portico) encroaching into the min. setback line. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 8Aug 09, 2009 2:01 am We conquered the city council and were successful with our dispensation application for reduced front and side setbacks! And it only took 2.5 weeks for the whole application process We are totally thrilled of course. I even went in to say thank you to the assistant building inspector for all of his help and advice Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 9Aug 09, 2009 7:15 pm Congratulations on getting your setback approved-some things are definetly worth persevering. We had no luck getting our crossover any wider than 3.5M but did get it approved to be moved-I tried for a few months and spoke to multiple people but as you mentioned they seem to have tightened up the crossover approvals unfortunetly for both of us. We are building in Ashwood-what about you? Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 10Aug 10, 2009 3:29 am jspitz Congratulations on getting your setback approved-some things are definetly worth persevering. We had no luck getting our crossover any wider than 3.5M but did get it approved to be moved-I tried for a few months and spoke to multiple people but as you mentioned they seem to have tightened up the crossover approvals unfortunetly for both of us. We are building in Ashwood-what about you? Hi Jspitz, Regarding the crossover, I pretty much accepted what was told to me by the city engineer. Coincidentally, he was the same person who dealt with my neighbour's successful application for a 5m crossover way back in end 2006....so lucky her. That said, the city engineer said he would help with how our new crossover would be finished at the road end since he noticed that the angle of the road to the land was somewhat acute and he said it would be a bummer to keep driving into the kerb. Which reminds me, I did ask for a council quote but they never sent one to me. So I'll have to chase up on this issue plus the design of the crossover. We are building in Glen Waverley. Decided to stay on in this suburb since our eldest started school last year and next year my 2nd one goes to kindergarten near the primary school. Lovely neighbourhood Ashwood is. I have driven through it on my way over from Glen Waverley to Glen Iris.... Otherwise, how is your build going? Mine hasn't started yet! We are still at the paper stage with the contracts signed a couple of weeks only. I have a huge saga with DFH at this point and on the verge of calling them myself to complain.... Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 11Aug 11, 2009 4:28 pm Hi, thanks for the reply. Glen Waverley is also nice-I spend a lot of time at the Glen shopping centre which is 7 mins from us. We are at completion stage so it is getting exciting, but frustrating...so close. The red tape does do your head in-we had plenty of it too. Not sure if i'd go through this whole experience again-I'd certainly be a lot wiser!!! Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 12Aug 11, 2009 11:05 pm Hi Jspitz, Good to know that you're almost on the home run At least (fingers crossed), you'll be enjoying this summer in your new home May I ask what you're building? We're building a DFH double storey design - they were the only project builders with a narrow design. We considered M*tric*n but their site costs were pretty high ($40-50k for retaining wall along drainage easement, land fall of 1.2m, piering etc). I know what you mean ---- I don't think I would want to go through this building ordeal ever again - and I say this without even having started my 1st home build!!!!!!! Hey, who knows, we may have crossed paths at The Glen without even knowing it! Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 13Aug 11, 2009 11:56 pm Hi tc2000, we are building the M Tribeca 40, we were lucky in that our block is 16.5mx42m so could fit almost any house on it (which is pretty rare these days). Yes site costs with M are ridiculous. We also have fall, maybe 1.5m over building site, needed screw piles and a demo block they make you do a P class slab=30K of site costs! But looked at all the options and a custom build for something similar was going to be a lot more. You can see our progress if you search for "our tribeca 40". Excuse my ignorance but what do the initials of your builder stand for-is it a custom build? What are the dimensions of your block? My brother also had problems finding a builder for his 2 storey as he has a 12M wide block-ended up building with Ash*ford homes-would not recommend them, there is lots of threads on the forum on them. Is there a website with your floorplan-love seeing what other people are doing with their floorplans, color selections etc. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 14Aug 12, 2009 12:59 am Hi tc2000, We are also building in Monash and applied for setback dispensation. We had one neighbour at 7.6 and one at 10m!!! We applied for a dispensation and sold it on the basis that we stepped the front of the house. ie 7.6 on one side and 9.5 to the garage. We also then have a potico out the front reducing the setback to 6.4m. The portico is not technically the front wall of the house so doesn't count. Of course you have to sweet talk the neighbours to get a signature. The council side of things was fairly quick and efficent (2-3 weeks). I don't think ours looks out of place as 4 houses along they are finishing a town house on the rear of a corner lot and therefore was alowed about a 3-4m set back which is to imposing. We also set the top floor back 1m to reduce the impact. It's worth pursuing as you can't change your mind later. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 15Aug 12, 2009 2:42 am jspitz Hi tc2000, we are building the M Tribeca 40, we were lucky in that our block is 16.5mx42m so could fit almost any house on it (which is pretty rare these days). Yes site costs with M are ridiculous. We also have fall, maybe 1.5m over building site, needed screw piles and a demo block they make you do a P class slab=30K of site costs! But looked at all the options and a custom build for something similar was going to be a lot more. You can see our progress if you search for "our tribeca 40". Excuse my ignorance but what do the initials of your builder stand for-is it a custom build? What are the dimensions of your block? My brother also had problems finding a builder for his 2 storey as he has a 12M wide block-ended up building with Ash*ford homes-would not recommend them, there is lots of threads on the forum on them. Is there a website with your floorplan-love seeing what other people are doing with their floorplans, color selections etc. HI jspitz, Yes, you are lucky with your block dimensions! My block is 15.52m (front), 18.42m (rear), 42.10m (left boundary) and 32.10m (right boundary). On paper it doesn't look too bad...but we have a 3m drainage easement running along the 42m boundary so this means our block is really 12.52m in width at the front....Council didn't allow us to build on or too near to the easement which limited our design search to narrow house designs.... Funny isn't it that most project builders include a Class M slab in the base prices but there is hardly any soil classification out there that is Class M anyway - Or they have every alphabet but Class P....and they make you pay for a different Class slab! We also looked at the Tribecca 40 when we spoke with M*tric*n. DFH stands for Dennis Family Homes. We are building the Marsden design - I have a huge saga about this but I shan't get into it. Check out their website, look under Generation series and my design is based on the Marsden 341. We liked it because not only did it suit our block but the secondary bedrooms were of a decent size with WIRs (which I like). I'm actually in the process of setting up a website/blog about my house building project....will let you know when that is up and running....I'll check out your progress as suggested. I, too, like to read and see other people's progress!! Hope we can continue to stay in touch Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 16Aug 12, 2009 2:51 am mudmap Hi tc2000, We are also building in Monash and applied for setback dispensation. We had one neighbour at 7.6 and one at 10m!!! We applied for a dispensation and sold it on the basis that we stepped the front of the house. ie 7.6 on one side and 9.5 to the garage. We also then have a potico out the front reducing the setback to 6.4m. The portico is not technically the front wall of the house so doesn't count. Of course you have to sweet talk the neighbours to get a signature. The council side of things was fairly quick and efficent (2-3 weeks). I don't think ours looks out of place as 4 houses along they are finishing a town house on the rear of a corner lot and therefore was alowed about a 3-4m set back which is to imposing. We also set the top floor back 1m to reduce the impact. It's worth pursuing as you can't change your mind later. Hi Mudmap, Thx for your reply. Yup, I dug my heels in and researched the length and breadth of the WWW to find the correct wording to use in my dispensation letter. I also did the "forlorn" and "helpless" female act with the assistant building inspector to squeeze out from him as much advice as possible (to of course use in my letter). I was over at Town & Planning so many times that at one point, one of the guys behind the counter recognised me and than subsequently, another guy recognised me not because he had seen me before but because he had seen my floor plans a couple of times (when my hubby went down). So 5 pages worth of words, an aerial pic of my street (painstakingly created via google map and multiple prints), various recreations of neighbours setback to mine, and 2.5 weeks later, voila, Council gave its consent (despite and objection from one neighbour - about loss of sunlight to her verandah!). Well, it did help that we have the drainage easement and the angled frontage - which worked in our favour. I even went down to personally thank the assistant building inspector! Would have hugged him but I thought it would be too much..... Where abouts are you building? Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 17Aug 12, 2009 11:00 am tc2000 I'm sure in the long run you'll be glad you went to the effort. We are building in Oakleigh. Approx 8 weeks to go so we're getting excited. Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 18Aug 12, 2009 1:01 pm Hi mudmap, Congrats too on being on the final stretch! As I said to jspitz, you'll have the joy of being in your new home this summer ! Well, I don't regret the tears and stress involved for the dispensation application..it was worth the countless trips to Town & Planning definitely! My next battle is with DFH to complain about their pricing for our house design. We signed for a modified design of what is now an extinct design which came up more expensive than the new design recently released (just after we signed our contract!). Our design is actually the same as the new released design. The worst is having been told early this year the cost of the proposed sale price of the now new design which has gone down by $8-10k - which makes our design overpriced. The display options we got are also now part of the standard inclusions which came into effect on 20 July 2009 - the day we signed but we were not told of this....SIGH Am about to send off a letter of concern (a nicer word than complaint) to DFH.....I can only try! Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 19Aug 12, 2009 9:32 pm Hi tc2000, your floor plan looks great-I like the big open living area at the back, the huge walk in pantry and the stairs being at the side like our house. The facade is really nice and contemporary too. That's annoying about the pricing going down on your house-with M the prices only go up!!!! Our house is at least 20K more expensive now than when we signed up and I think we got mostly better inclusions. But they get you no matter what you do. We copped an extra $6500 from our preliminary contract to our final contract because they suddenly decided we needed screw piles (I fought it with high up people at M but got nowhere) and copped $3500 as they couldn't get on site within 5 months of us signing our initial deposit as we had the demo to do. You get a great base price for the size of the house but they certainly get their cream in site costs and hugely inflated upgrades. I will look out for your blog-look forward to seeing it transform! Re: Dispensation for setback - Monash City, Victoria 20Aug 13, 2009 12:19 am Hi jspitz, Thx for your reply...after shopping around, we decided that most floorplans actually looked the same barring the different facades. I think Porter Davis started this design and have actually successfully won law suits against their competitors. Last I heard, law suits against M*tr*con and DFH were also pending! Apparently, PD have a copyright for dining off kitchen, family area, rear rumpus room and alfresco from dining area.... Since our house design is narrower (at least by almost 0.5-1m compared to your design and PD's Cremorne 42), our downstairs and upstairs living area is much smaller too. But the bigger bedrooms and the WIRs makeup for this deficit For our house design, we decided to go for the Classic facade. It's not as eye catching as the Resort or Modern facade admittedly...we felt the classic was more in keeping with our neighbourhood. Yes, I will keep you posted with pics and stuff when the time comes to start..... Building thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=22917 27.07.09 Contract signed. 08.09.09 Site scraped. 18.09.09 Slab completed! 23.11.09 Bricking done 09.03.10 - Tiling 15.04.10 PCI 01.05.10 Handover Hi All, see above image. The required setback from the rear boundary in my case is 5m, as you can see the shape of the site and location of the boundary is slightly… 0 5839 This was on google. Development controls 2.3.1 Front setback D1 New buildings within residential areas shall adhere to a front building line, which is 5.5-6m to the… 1 2712 Hi folks, Victoria resident here. I've submitted my owner builder application to the VBA. I thought I'd share my experience so far. I submitted my application… 0 6179 |