House Episode 9

Of course the difference between a pre-DA meeting and the DA is that the first is a chit-chat whereas the second is a bit more serious and finishes with us being allowed to build. So it is to be expected that the feedback would change from the pre-DA's "should all be fine" to the DA's "we need clarification."

There are three areas that concern the council. First, we are in an area that was recently (re)classified as "subject to localisaed overland flooding." As far as I can tell tha simplyt means we live half way down a hill and water flows down hill. So the council is a bit concerned about stormwater travel over our land. If we're lucky we should simply be able to stick a pipe straight into the easement at the foot of our garden. If we're unlucky we may need to install an on-site-detention (OSD) thingy that holds a load of water before letting it go into the easement. Either way we'll be up for a bit or a lot more cash, spendies likely (I suspect) to start with a hydrological engineer.

On the engineer front, we have chosen a firm and a dude should be making his first site-visit late this week. We chose the middle of the three quotes and. This firm came recommended by the guys three doors up the street from us who used them for their renovations. And the back of their house is still standing. They know geotechnical enginners for all the soil stuff. Wonder if they have htdro guys? Hmmm...

Back to Willoughby Council. The other things they mentioned were privacy and shadowing. Not sure why, probably justifying their existence. Our propsed extension will cast a shadow on a fucking great oak tree, I'll admit that. As for privacy, our deck will face the windowless brick wall of our neighbours to the other side. But, on both counts, as we intend to minimise excavation our floor level, and hence deck level, is a tad higher than the floor level of our neighbours, so I'll allow them to ask the question. As our neighbours to the left and right did not raise any objections and the neighbour to the back, whose house we'll be looking straight at, is our architect, I hope everything will be fine.

But it is a council.