We currently live in a house with some flaws but in a good location. There is currently an inappropriate development proposed for near us. We were looking to renovate at some stage in the future, but am not too sure on the timelines (given that we may want to make modifications based upon the final nature of the development. That being said we also don't want to wait indefinitely (in that some fixes that we are thinking about would make the house more liveable).
This being the case I was wondering what people would suggest as the way forward. I was thinking about getting an architect in to do up some plans and the we could potentially do the renovations in more of a piecemeal fashion. My concern with this is that I don't know whether architects would be able to design within a budget (ie if the architect is seperate from the building company could they reasonably estimate the cost of the build - don't want to work to a design and then 5 years down the track find that what they have designed for is going to be too expensive).
Also was wondering how long council approvals last for (ie if we are working to a design I wouldn't want to get 5 years into it and then find that what was originally approved has to be discarded).
Thoughts?