Getting Closer to Construction

At the end of my last post, I wrote that there was issues with the flood classification of the blocks in Stage 1A of Calderwood Valley.  Well much to my surprise Shellharbour City Council (SCC) and LendLease did manage to get these issues sorted out within two weeks which was great!  During the two weeks that it was taking for the issue to be resolved, Rachel from LendLease was great at keeping me updated on the progress.

The certificate now reads as follows:

Calderwood Urban Development Project - No. Information relied upon to determine whether flood related development controls apply was produced by consultants engaged by the developer during the Land & Environment Court case: “Lend Lease Communities (Australia) Limited v Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Shellharbour City Council and Wollongong City Council”. The Land & Environment Court granted conditional development consent to the subdivision of this land.  However, Council is in the process of preparing a Floodplain Risk Management Study and Plan for Macquarie Rivulet and advice related to flooding and flood related development controls may change upon Council’s adoption of new flood information.  For further information, please contact Council's Engineering Services on 4221 6111 (This information has been provided pursuant to section 149(5) of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act, but does not constitute a full section 149(5) planning certificate).

Whilst I shouldn't have any issues getting my building approved in the interim, SCC have now released their Draft Macquarie Rivulet Flood Study and from a quick look it shows Stage 1A of Calderwood Valley still being a flood way.  So I will have to have a better read of the report and look at making a submission to SCC to make sure they don't try reclassify us as flood prone based on incorrect modelling!

In other news things have been moving very slowly with McDonald Jones Homes (MJH) but I have now finally received updated plans from them, although the driveway design is still incorrect.  
 

The good news was that my soil test came back as Class M but I did receive the following variations:

• Provide a 257mm dropped edge beam to the LHS side & rear of the garage to retain fill due to 200mm setback - $1125 
• The electricity pillar is located to the LHS of your home and since there is not enough space to relocate the meter box to the garage external wall it has now resulted in additional run in to run the electrical mains across the front yard to the pillar on the LHS - $1400  $776 (see below - reduced when I challenged the figure)

Upon querying how MJH came up with $1400 for the electrical run-in, MJH told me it was on the basis of an extra 20lm.  This allowance seemed quite excessive and upon querying they found they had made an error and it will only be $776.  So it certainly does pay to make sure you scrutinize the variation claims your builder gives you.

Fingers crossed it will all move much quicker now and I will be on the construction list by the end of August!