Some good news

Met with the SC yesterday and he was excellent. He was speechless when I advised that the SM had told me that we might have to part ways if I was unprepared to seek an application for non-compliance.

But the SC pulled out his folder and went through the plans looking for an alternative design as apparently HO has indicated they do not want to change rooflines to accommodate changes to layout of a design, OMG!

Prior to the meeting I went and spoke with other builders at Kellyville who all said they were involved in current applications where, due to various Council's strict environmental requirements, they had been providing clients changes to layouts that involved moving rooms about thereby not affecting the overall size simply the layout. A nice one I saw at Beechwood relocated the rumpus to the very rear of the house inserting another hallway from the eating area past the last bedroom to the backyard, lending itself to a great area to watch TV undisturbed and have a passive lookout to the backyard.

But it looks like now I won't be building the Apollo but instead the Concerto, a smaller house to start with but fits in the building envelope with some small losses in the length added to the width. The Concerto has an irregular L shape but overall we end up with no fewer rooms but under the 225 sqm building maximum. Fingers crossed plans will be ready in the next week and back to Council.

Maybe not the Apollo

Well, since Council had requested amendments to the plans in the week prior to Christmas what has changed? Not much. Allworth closed down for a couple of weeks with sales staff coming back on line in the second week of the new year and the planning staff as of the 11th. Since then I have provided them alternative arrangement of their plans to try and meet Council requirements, which are : 1) too close to the back fence (STUPID MISTAKE) 2) not enough solar access set back on the NW boundary 3) reduce sqm 4) set garage back behind main building line (ANOTHER STUPID MISTAKE).

But no, of the 4 I suggested too them they couldn't make it work.

So then I start looking at other builder's for inspiration, particularly those that I know are building at Spring Farm. I got a typical "we are working on it" type response. Then painstakingly blowing things up on the copier at work and cutting and pasting onto a 1cm x 1cm version of the 15m x 30m block taking time to ensure appropriate setbacks. With these new layouts I realise that I can't even recall what the original plan looked like. So along with the new layouts I suggest that "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" as in since we are working on a new design, if you give us some nice extras you can photograph it when fitted out and use it on your brochure. NO CALL BACK.

So I ring and the SC is waiting to hear back from the SM about our offer but it's looking good, and now he just has to work on a concept plan that not only suits me but will be marketable.

SO you are telling me you've been back at work for 3 weeks, the designer guy for 2 and you still haven't put pen to paper?

Then to top it off the Bank calls and says you haven't used your money yet, we are six months post approval what's the GO? Well we can't retract the offer as it lasts for 12 moths, but we now require you to provide us a new plan which we need to assess as being equivalent to the one we granted the money to originally go towards. Of course you do... how silly would it be for you to give me all that money and you run the risk that should you need to sell it it's only a 2 bed cabin...

So... on Monday I will be commencing a testy call with the SM at Allworth.

Colour Selection

I forgot to mention that the appointment with the CC was about a week after the plans went to Council although the colours were all picked back in October after a series of rapid visits to the tile place on the Hume Highway at Lansvale and the brick and roofing places, Austral, Boral and PGH.

So the choices I'll put in a list in the sidebar, and some pics:

Bathroom tile 400 x 250 Dynasty Mauna Kea Plain Gloss White laid horizontally and a vertical strip offset in shower recesses 49 x 23 Xmen Marchiato Blend Glass laid horizontally (that means as it appears in the picture because apparently some people use it as a border around the room laid vertically, or a strip laid vertically).

Patio tile 'Shaded Hammer White'

The floor is not shown as I purchased a sample rather than take a pic is 200 x 200 Venere Charcoal, which I think looks a bit like slate.

To date

Firstly to set the scene. I commenced the search for the land and the design and sourcing finance February 2009. This means we are coming up to a year and still no house. If I am lenient then I will write off 2-3 months whilst trying to line up the divine trinity of what I can afford, where I want to live and what I want to live in. But once this seriously settled into a linear projection, it has all been seriously uphill.

In the beginning it was delay from the finance end, and quite frankly was lucky to get it in time to meet the contract for the land had it have been settled in the ordinary amount of time. In the middle the delay came from the Land Developer and/or Council, waiting for the land to be registered. And overlapping that and now, being the final delay, is the house.

Having got the block of land and working on picking the design for months, I thought it would be straightforward. But alas, no! Being the approach of the end of the full FHOG Allworth was having difficulty getting the plans together and proceeding through the normal course of events so we were lucky because the delay was acknowledged on their part that we have a contract in place that we can rescind on without penalty at any point until Council approval comes through. This however is not a true sense of relief because having received the FHOG through our lender in advance we would have to repay this amount and therefore would only be eligible for the current rates.

But I proceeded with confidence when we exchanged contracts for the land on 29 September and the house on 30 September. Because of the special circumstances I engaged the Solicitor doing the conveyancing to advise on the house contract, so all the special conditions are above board. How naive I have been.

The plans went to Council on 3 December. Yes you read it right, 3 December. Because everything couldn't be sorted at one meeting with the SC, well according to them, we had to meet on a few occasions. But seriously, 2 months of doing plans? You've got Auto-CAD people, it's not like back in the good ol' days when you got your nifty protractor out to design the roof line, the pitch, blah, blah, blah.

But the land was mine with the first repayment to happen right before Christmas. And the plans were with Council, and despite the original delay in registering the land, I love Camden Council. 2 weeks people, 2 WEEKS. That's all they have generally been taking to approve plans. So as I see it, since I check the DA tracking tool every day, once they have been approved I can hassle Allworth to try and get the slab down in time for builder's shutdown, so that they can get straight into in come the last week of January.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's too close to the back fence. It doesn't have a large enough private space area. It exceeds the 50% of the lot rule. It doesn't have the appropriate 50% NW setback. The garage is not set behind the front line of the building. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??? Who makes these kind of mistakes? So after having a very short conversation with the SC, the calling the CC, I called Council. The lady there very kindly stood up for Allworth saying that because the block is 450m2 Allworth appeared to be acting under the misguided belief that Council would give non-compliance approval like they may have done about 1-2 years ago. I don't flipping care what they thought, but I was pacified slightly.

What then fired me back up was the tracking tool said the additional info (code for fix something) was requested on 16 December after the preliminary assessment commenced on 9 December - Good work Camden, keep the 2 week turnaround up. So the 17th happens and it gets to late after lunch, so I call the SC to see what it's all about. But they haven't heard. So I call the CC and it's not on the computer. She'll get back to me tomorrow. And they do, and it's whats listed above, but it's date stamped received that morning. Really people? You don't check your DX twice a day like most normal business, you just do it once despite the purpose of DX being to ensure mail is delivered confidentially an quickly with multiple deliveries throughout the day as needed? I don't know but I'm a Solicitor and I know my clients would hit the roof if their contract or agreement sat in the DX box overnight with them anxiously waiting to find out whatever it is they are waiting to be told.

So I ring up to have a go, to be very efficiently palmed off by the SC. So again I ring the CC. I explain to her I understand what needs to be changed, and thats fine, but before the plans go back into Council I want to see them. She gets that, she'll get the SC to call me back tomorrow because it's almost close of business.

I go home and look back over things, where am I prepared to lose space? Moving forward is not a problem, that's them being lazy putting it a bit too far back to take advantage of the less cut and fill needed. But it's apparently 25m2 over the threshold. How can that be? I started with 208m2, how did moving 10m of wall out 36cm get to that amount? And there I see it. They started off with the larger squares design... Are you serious? No really? I mean are you serious! So how did this happen? I figure it happened because I asked for a portico to go on the front, to look like the larger squares model, but instead they've just decided to throw the extra squares in for free, free the planners time up and move me on down the production line. Right...

I wait until lunch the next day before I ring her back. She's gobsmacked, the SC said he'd already spoken to me about it, she'll get him to call me ASAP. So he does and again proceeds to speak over the top of me and he's a little irate that he's in trouble with his boss. I get that, but that's not my problem. So I fire up and very sternly explain that I want to see a sketch of the new layout because A) I want to understand what space I am losing by 5m of the length of the design need to be pulled back by 5m and B) IT"S YOUR FAULT BUDDY NOT MINE, your team used the wrong plan to start with.

But as it is December nothing can happen now until the team comes back in the week of the 4th or 11th.

So here we are, SC is back at work as of the 8th and the planner as of the 11th. I have so far developed 4 alternatives based on my tried and true method of photocopying the original brochure before any alterations were made, and with 2 copies I cut one up and move the rooms about on the whole version to ensure I am staying within the original concept and allowable space. And today at work I stumbled across all these bloggers building in the west and south-west and thought, why not?

I'll be posting updates, and am determined to have a house to move into by June, don't you worry.