Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 61Mar 01, 2011 9:43 pm Hi, We are also building at Harcrest with Porter Davis. Yesterday at the colour appointment we selected Homestead Red and matched the rest of the colours to it. Now we find that the Mirvac design guidelines does not allow this type of bricks and our contract appointment is on Monday! The design guidelines has 6 from Austral and 9 from Boral. PD offers bricks from Austral and Nubrik only. The only overlap between what PD offers and the Mirvac design guidelines are Homestead Mushroom (category 2 upgrade) and Elements Graphite (category 8 upgrade). Hardly any choice and PD is one of the preferred builders at Harcrest. PD is building 4 adjacent houses in our street and, with this restriction on the choice of bricks, how is the "Facade Replication" restriction going to be practical? The design guidelines says "A dwelling must not have an identical facade to another dwelling within 4 lots in either direction on the same side of the street or within 3 lots on the opposite side of the street". Both Mirvac and PD must sort this out ASAP. Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 62Mar 01, 2011 11:03 pm twakky henry jones Hi, Hope appointment went well, we have our in a few weeks. It depends who you are building with, but Porter Davis only offer normal batten lights, halogen lights or recessed batten lights which look a little ulgly and cannot take halogen bulbs. Speaking to Hoptone, they do not offer LED. Can I ask which Porter Davis range you are building in and which colour brick and rendor did you go for, as these also have to match the design guidelines. At the moment we are undecided on a dark or light brick. I believe any red type of brick is out of the question. Anybody else done there selection? posting.php?mode=quote&f=31&p=670243#Henry I had no idea that red bricks aren't allowed..? Anyone can confirm this? The new system they're using for the latest release seems fairer. If only they had that in the first release! 3 hours of sitting and listening to numbers was not much fun.. Hi twakky, Yeah saw the e-mail from Harcrest. Have to agree with you, seems like a much fairer system. Like yourself, we were close to last in having our number drawn in ballot so we didn't many options left not to mention the 3 hour wait. Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 63Mar 01, 2011 11:07 pm cmac Hi, We are also building at Harcrest with Porter Davis. Yesterday at the colour appointment we selected Homestead Red and matched the rest of the colours to it. Now we find that the Mirvac design guidelines does not allow this type of bricks and our contract appointment is on Monday! The design guidelines has 6 from Austral and 9 from Boral. PD offers bricks from Austral and Nubrik only. The only overlap between what PD offers and the Mirvac design guidelines are Homestead Mushroom (category 2 upgrade) and Elements Graphite (category 8 upgrade). Hardly any choice and PD is one of the preferred builders at Harcrest. PD is building 4 adjacent houses in our street and, with this restriction on the choice of bricks, how is the "Facade Replication" restriction going to be practical? The design guidelines says "A dwelling must not have an identical facade to another dwelling within 4 lots in either direction on the same side of the street or within 3 lots on the opposite side of the street". Both Mirvac and PD must sort this out ASAP. Hi cmac, I think the design guidelines are just a guideline selection on the types of bricks that you should be selecting. I don't think it is only limited to those listed there. Anyone confirm this? We're building with Carlisle and have gone with the Homestead Tan with is a Cat 1a upgrade, so it didn't end up costing too much provided it will be approved by Mirvac. Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 64Mar 03, 2011 10:38 am Hi Tramsok, I checked with Mirvac and was told that whatever is listed in the design guidelines is what is available for you to choose from. Builders (e.g PD) can submit for approval bricks with a variation in color and Mirvac will review and “Approve” or “Decline” – OMG, and I thought we live in a democratic society. When I raised the issue that PD’s arrangement with Austral does not allow much choice for us, I was told that this was for PD to resolve. The argument was that the preferred builders – Me***con and PD were briefed about the guidelines and are expected to know and follow these to the letter. Our best bet is to get PD to add other brick makers on to their panel. We are paying a premium for this piece of land and the developer does not take the initiative to ensure that the preferred builders offer a good range of options within the guidelines. Why then, do they nominate preferred builders? Developers should ensure a fair deal for the buyers. Regds Building with PD 01.06.11 Contract Sigd 01.10.11 Site Start 04.11.11 Frame Complete 20.01.12 Fix Stage Complete 31.03.12 Handover Complete *16.04.2012 Moved in* Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 65Mar 04, 2011 9:12 am Bruno Hi Tramsok, I checked with Mirvac and was told that whatever is listed in the design guidelines is what is available for you to choose from. Builders (e.g PD) can submit for approval bricks with a variation in color and Mirvac will review and “Approve” or “Decline” – OMG, and I thought we live in a democratic society. When I raised the issue that PD’s arrangement with Austral does not allow much choice for us, I was told that this was for PD to resolve. The argument was that the preferred builders – Me***con and PD were briefed about the guidelines and are expected to know and follow these to the letter. Our best bet is to get PD to add other brick makers on to their panel. We are paying a premium for this piece of land and the developer does not take the initiative to ensure that the preferred builders offer a good range of options within the guidelines. Why then, do they nominate preferred builders? Developers should ensure a fair deal for the buyers. Regds Hey Bruno, Thanks for that. Wow that sucks! I've been trying to contact Mirvac to get an answer but still no response. I imagine this will make it hard for some builders that stock only a certain selection of bricks, limiting the options people will have to build their house without having to upgrade to cat 6 brick for example. I presume then this would be the same with the colours? That you can only select the colours listed in the guideline Tramsok Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 66Mar 04, 2011 10:46 am Yes... this brick issue is ridiculous. If neither Mirvac & PD don't do anything about it the only boral bricks (Access & Lifestyle houses) PD people can use is Beaumond (cat 3), Grey Nuance (cat 6) & Labassa (Cat 5). I can just imagine builders forcing people to add more render (therefore more $$) to their facade to satisfy the facade replication policy... Built the Montrose 19 with PD @ Harcrest (Stage 1) 03.05.11 House Contract 01.07.11 Land Settlement 01.09.11 Site Start 12.10.11 Lock up 14.12.11 PCI 22.12.11 Handover Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 67Mar 04, 2011 12:46 pm We are building a prestige home and the only choice of bricks from PD are Homestead Mushroom (category 2 upgrade) and Elements Graphite (category 8 upgrade). After requesting the upgrade price a few times, I have been informed that $1595 for Mushroom and $14599 for Graphite. It is ridiculous. PD and Mirvac should sit down together and work this out instead of passing the buck. This has caused a number of problems with having to rethink colour selections. We have postponed the contract appointment from today to Friday because of this. Can someone from PD and/or Mirvac comment on this? Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 68Mar 04, 2011 4:14 pm Hi Everyone, I understand you feel limited by the Mirvac design guidelines in relation to the selections offered by Porter Davis Homes. I have read through your comments and will be passing on your feedback to the relevant staff at PD to review. I also recommend bringing this up with your CSA and submitting a detailed description of your thoughts in writing so that they have a clear understanding of the issue at hand. Keep me updated with how everything goes. Cheers, Jess. Porter Davis Homes Questions? Call 1800PORTER Mon - Fri 9am-8pm Sat - Sun 10am-4pm info@porterdavis.com.au http://blog.porterdavis.com.au/ http://www.porterdavishomes.com.au Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 69Mar 04, 2011 6:17 pm Team PD Hi Everyone, I understand you feel limited by the Mirvac design guidelines in relation to the selections offered by Porter Davis Homes. I have read through your comments and will be passing on your feedback to the relevant staff at PD to review. I also recommend bringing this up with your CSA and submitting a detailed description of your thoughts in writing so that they have a clear understanding of the issue at hand. Keep me updated with how everything goes. Cheers, Jess. Hi Jess, Thank you for your comments. I have been corresponding with my CSA about this in the last few days and I have been told that the problem is due to Mirvac. CSA has already spoken to the regional manager and has been told that unfortunately nothing can be done due to the area we have chosen to build the house. I have been told to choose one of the 2 bricks offered as upgrade at a cost of $1,595 or $14,599. If PD is one of the preferred builders and was made aware of the Mitva design guidelines as Mirvac says, how come PD is offering only 2 out of the 6 colours from the guidelines for prestige homes and both of them are upgrades? To be fair to the clients, PD should add the other 4 colours in their offer and at least one or two of them should be in the standard category. A reputable builder like PD should provide a solution to this problem quickly. As PD and Mirvac blame each other we, as customers, are copping a lot of extra cost after committing to a fortune to purchase land at Harcrest and to build with PD, one of the preferred Mirvac builders. Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 70Mar 04, 2011 10:39 pm Wow, this isn't good. I think we can argue this to Mirvac as it comes down to interpretation. No where in the design guidelines does it specifically mention these are the bricks you have to choose or that you are limited to these bricks only. To quote, it says "Refer to Figure 4 and 5 for guideline selection palette for masonry and lightweight materials" with figure 4 showing the bricks. The key word I take from that sentence is "guideline", I always thought all along that they are just a guideline of the colours and NOT in anyway limted to those colours and bricks. I will be chasing Mirvac up myself also have them clarify and confirm this. I don't think the sentence alone is sufficient in stating that you MUST use those bricks. Any lawyers here that can confirm that? Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 71Mar 05, 2011 7:30 am Tramsok Wow, this isn't good. I think we can argue this to Mirvac as it comes down to interpretation. No where in the design guidelines does it specifically mention these are the bricks you have to choose or that you are limited to these bricks only. To quote, it says "Refer to Figure 4 and 5 for guideline selection palette for masonry and lightweight materials" with figure 4 showing the bricks. The key word I take from that sentence is "guideline", I always thought all along that they are just a guideline of the colours and NOT in anyway limted to those colours and bricks. I will be chasing Mirvac up myself also have them clarify and confirm this. I don't think the sentence alone is sufficient in stating that you MUST use those bricks. Any lawyers here that can confirm that? Hi Tramsok, You may be right, but are we prepared to risk having our selection rejected by Mirvac? Wasting time and money. We probably have to pay the $200 assessment fee again. We would prefer Urban One Latte to Homestead Mushroom and it is one of PD's standard bricks. If you are right, we should be able to choose Latte as it can be argued it is within the colour palette on figure 4. What we need is a clarification by someone from Mirvac. I have tried to contact them by phone, e-mail etc and no response yet. The Customer Relations Consultant at Mirvac for Harcrest is hopeless. They don't care as we have all signed a binding contract to buy land at Harcrest. Also the person in charge of colour consultants at PD should cop some of the blame. He/she should have discussed this with Mirvac and ensured that the colour consultants understand these restrictions. It looks like the colour consultants at Hopetoun are not aware of these guidelines as we were allowed to choose Homestead Red and match the rest of the colours to it at our colour appointment. Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 72Mar 05, 2011 7:53 am cmac Tramsok Wow, this isn't good. I think we can argue this to Mirvac as it comes down to interpretation. No where in the design guidelines does it specifically mention these are the bricks you have to choose or that you are limited to these bricks only. To quote, it says "Refer to Figure 4 and 5 for guideline selection palette for masonry and lightweight materials" with figure 4 showing the bricks. The key word I take from that sentence is "guideline", I always thought all along that they are just a guideline of the colours and NOT in anyway limted to those colours and bricks. I will be chasing Mirvac up myself also have them clarify and confirm this. I don't think the sentence alone is sufficient in stating that you MUST use those bricks. Any lawyers here that can confirm that? Hi Tramsok, You may be right, but are we prepared to risk having our selection rejected by Mirvac? Wasting time and money. We probably have to pay the $200 assessment fee again. We would prefer Urban One Latte to Homestead Mushroom and it is one of PD's standard bricks. If you are right, we should be able to choose Latte as it can be argued it is within the colour palette on figure 4. What we need is a clarification by someone from Mirvac. I have tried to contact them by phone, e-mail etc and no response yet. The Customer Relations Consultant at Mirvac for Harcrest is hopeless. They don't care as we have all signed a binding contract to buy land at Harcrest. Also the person in charge of colour consultants at PD should cop some of the blame. He/she should have discussed this with Mirvac and ensured that the colour consultants understand these restrictions. It looks like the colour consultants at Hopetoun are not aware of these guidelines as we were allowed to choose Homestead Red and match the rest of the colours to it at our colour appointment. Everyone Some good news, got a call from our Harcrest customer relations consultant and she has just confirmed that the colours and bricks are just a guideline. I sent her a link to the forum also to let her know about the confusion it is all causing. She out on site but said she will reply in writing to my e-mail on Monday to confirm. So to repeat that those bricks are a guideline ONLY so you do NOT have to choose those listed there, just along as they are close. She did say NO red bricks though. I hope that helps! Tramsok Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 73Mar 05, 2011 12:14 pm Tramsok cmac Tramsok Wow, this isn't good. I think we can argue this to Mirvac as it comes down to interpretation. No where in the design guidelines does it specifically mention these are the bricks you have to choose or that you are limited to these bricks only. To quote, it says "Refer to Figure 4 and 5 for guideline selection palette for masonry and lightweight materials" with figure 4 showing the bricks. The key word I take from that sentence is "guideline", I always thought all along that they are just a guideline of the colours and NOT in anyway limted to those colours and bricks. I will be chasing Mirvac up myself also have them clarify and confirm this. I don't think the sentence alone is sufficient in stating that you MUST use those bricks. Any lawyers here that can confirm that? Hi Tramsok, You may be right, but are we prepared to risk having our selection rejected by Mirvac? Wasting time and money. We probably have to pay the $200 assessment fee again. We would prefer Urban One Latte to Homestead Mushroom and it is one of PD's standard bricks. If you are right, we should be able to choose Latte as it can be argued it is within the colour palette on figure 4. What we need is a clarification by someone from Mirvac. I have tried to contact them by phone, e-mail etc and no response yet. The Customer Relations Consultant at Mirvac for Harcrest is hopeless. They don't care as we have all signed a binding contract to buy land at Harcrest. Also the person in charge of colour consultants at PD should cop some of the blame. He/she should have discussed this with Mirvac and ensured that the colour consultants understand these restrictions. It looks like the colour consultants at Hopetoun are not aware of these guidelines as we were allowed to choose Homestead Red and match the rest of the colours to it at our colour appointment. Everyone Some good news, got a call from our Harcrest customer relations consultant and she has just confirmed that the colours and bricks are just a guideline. I sent her a link to the forum also to let her know about the confusion it is all causing. She out on site but said she will reply in writing to my e-mail on Monday to confirm. So to repeat that those bricks are a guideline ONLY so you do NOT have to choose those listed there, just along as they are close. She did say NO red bricks though. I hope that helps! Tramsok Hi Tramsok, Thank you for the good news. We have been to Hopetoun today to rematch the colours to Homestead Mushroom. How much Carlisle is charging you to upgrade to Homestead Tan? Mushroom and Tan retail for the same price ($926.20 per 1000) as per Austral's price list while standard category retails for $893.20 per 1000. Parchment from the Settlers Range ($953.70 per 1000) is also included in the standard category. Based on the additional $14,599 PD wants for Elements Graphite ($1437.20 per 1000), the upgrade to Mushroom should only cost $885. But PD wants $1,595 from us. The Harcrest customer relations consultant told me on Wednesday when I managed to catch her briefly on the mobile that she will reply to my questions before the end of the week. Still no reply. Her answering service is always the same "out on site or away from the phone". Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 74Mar 08, 2011 11:02 am Tramsok, Thanks for clearing this up. Apologies for having started this confusion, but well, it was based on what the Mirvac contact told me. Anyways, I am happy like many others here, to hear the good news. Thanks again. Building with PD 01.06.11 Contract Sigd 01.10.11 Site Start 04.11.11 Frame Complete 20.01.12 Fix Stage Complete 31.03.12 Handover Complete *16.04.2012 Moved in* Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 75Mar 12, 2011 10:49 am Hi all, Our tender appointment has been fixed for the 27th of April and the contracts towards the end of May. Hopetoun appointment will be fixed soon, for some time early-mid May. Things are happening!! Our friends have advised us that we should plan and visit Hopetoun 3 or 4 times before the appointment to familiarize ourselves with the different options and combinations to avoid being overawed by the complexities, all in one day. That is almost all the weekends from now on. We are planning our first visit tomorrow. I dread the color selection bit. Not sure if we know what looks good Hope that we get a good consultant. We already visited Blanco to check out the dishwasher, rangehood, oven etc.- No big deal. PD consultant advised me that they will get in touch with Harcrest to find out when they could get access for the soil tests. I hope the soil tests do not throw any surprises... We have pretty much decided to go with timber flooring for the ground floor and carpet upstairs. We are planning to take the flooring option in the upgrade and let PD do the carpets. We plan to get the floorboards done after handover. Need to talk to PD about how best to plan this out. More updates in due course.. Bruno Building with PD 01.06.11 Contract Sigd 01.10.11 Site Start 04.11.11 Frame Complete 20.01.12 Fix Stage Complete 31.03.12 Handover Complete *16.04.2012 Moved in* Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 76Mar 16, 2011 9:02 pm Hi Cmac, Carlisle charged us $722 to upgrade to Homestead Tan (we are building a single story) and $637 for off white mortar. Bruno, definitely visit Hopetoun prior to your appointment. We were in the same boat, we had our colour selection several weeks ago but we went in every weekend leading up to it and selected all our colours etc. so that on the day it was quick and simple as we pretty much had decided on everything. Couple of things we encountered we thought I would share on the forum, may not apply to everyone. 1. Chosing your facade, at the end of the day we couldn't get our 1st preference because of the estate requirements. Eaves being one of them, the facade we wanted couldn't have eaves applied to it so we had to chose another one. Not sure if people are deciding on a facade and whether PD can accomodate the eaves on all their facades. 2. The front set back of 4m with the garage being a minimum 4.9 metres from the front boundary lot as per the memorandum of common provisions. A garage with access facing a street boundary, must be set back not less the 4.9m and at least 900mm behind the front street building line of the dwelling. This again affected the facade we chose as we had to ensure that it met this requirement. Some facades that we were looking that had a flat profile had to be excluded as the garage needed to be set back further from the front of the house. That was a real pain for us as it did limit the number of facades we were able to choose. I guess that is what you get when you are building into a Mirvac estate. Tramsok Tramsok Building Montana 27 with Carlisle Homes @ Harcrest 23/10/11 Land Ballot 05/12/10 Deposit 27/07/11 Contract 20/08/11 Site Start 13/09/11 Slab 22/09/11 Frame complete 13/10/11 Lock-up 25/11/11 PCI Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 77Mar 20, 2011 12:45 pm Tramsok Hi Cmac, Carlisle charged us $722 to upgrade to Homestead Tan (we are building a single story) and $637 for off white mortar. Bruno, definitely visit Hopetoun prior to your appointment. We were in the same boat, we had our colour selection several weeks ago but we went in every weekend leading up to it and selected all our colours etc. so that on the day it was quick and simple as we pretty much had decided on everything. Couple of things we encountered we thought I would share on the forum, may not apply to everyone. 1. Chosing your facade, at the end of the day we couldn't get our 1st preference because of the estate requirements. Eaves being one of them, the facade we wanted couldn't have eaves applied to it so we had to chose another one. Not sure if people are deciding on a facade and whether PD can accomodate the eaves on all their facades. 2. The front set back of 4m with the garage being a minimum 4.9 metres from the front boundary lot as per the memorandum of common provisions. A garage with access facing a street boundary, must be set back not less the 4.9m and at least 900mm behind the front street building line of the dwelling. This again affected the facade we chose as we had to ensure that it met this requirement. Some facades that we were looking that had a flat profile had to be excluded as the garage needed to be set back further from the front of the house. That was a real pain for us as it did limit the number of facades we were able to choose. I guess that is what you get when you are building into a Mirvac estate. Tramsok Hi Tramsok...some nice points there....can you confirm what size house are you building with Carlisle ? Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 78Apr 05, 2011 5:33 pm Hi everyone, not much posting on here recently, has anybody signed contracts with builder and submitted their plans to Mirvac Design Committee yet? Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 79Apr 06, 2011 1:59 pm Hi all Not much action with the house for us within the past month or so (we've been busy with wedding planning!). But our tile selection appointment is this friday, the colour/electricals are on the following monday and then we have our contract signing about a week later. Phew! Anyone else penning their signatures to a contract soon? Built the Montrose 19 with PD @ Harcrest (Stage 1) 03.05.11 House Contract 01.07.11 Land Settlement 01.09.11 Site Start 12.10.11 Lock up 14.12.11 PCI 22.12.11 Handover Re: Building @ Harcrest, Wantirna South 80Apr 06, 2011 9:15 pm Hi Twakky, Our tender appointment is on the 27th of April. Tiles in the first week of May and color selection the in the week following that. Contracts are some time towards end May. We are currently in a confused state of brick and render colour selection. This is proving to be a difficult task complicated by the fact that PD/Austral offer very few optios within the permissible range (Harcrest Guidelines) and highly likely that each one of us will have to upgrade the bricks. Too confusing I was told by PD that our soil test has come back ok. Hopefully, there should be no dramas at build time. Any news from Mirvac on land settlement? thanks and regards, Bruno Building with PD 01.06.11 Contract Sigd 01.10.11 Site Start 04.11.11 Frame Complete 20.01.12 Fix Stage Complete 31.03.12 Handover Complete *16.04.2012 Moved in* Adam Baines Grad Cert Bldg Surv / Grad Dip Bldg Surv / MSAAPA Accredited Building Professional APB20210035 Builders Lic 183023 Pest Control Lic 84868 Ph 0412202336 PO… 3 46834 Well these guys are not looking good... I sent them a written enquiry last week and they have not yet replied. If they cannot respond to a simple… 4 10629 Keen to hear from people in the area who have got KDRB done on whom they got the build from? Looking for recommendations. Thanks 0 21104 |