It is with huge delight that I report that the Development Application (DA) for the new house has now been lodged with Hornsby Council. Hooray! Following a lengthy and detailed process of designing, planning, and herding numerous expert contractors who prepared squillions of reports, the documentation was finally ready and the lodgement button clicked.
A pause here to give a shout-out to Alvaro Architects and my son Evan Freeman, lead draftsperson on this project. Bravissimi!
Next steps
Excitingly, I now have a link to a ‘portal’ (that old-fashioned word for a web page) where I can ‘track the application from my dashboard.’
I’m told the first step will be to pay the Council fee. Until the money’s in the bank, nobody does anything. I’m waiting for the payment request so all the busy local government peeps can cast their gimlet eyes over our meticulous plans and greenlight the project ASAP!
And how long will that take, you ask?
This news report last month looked into this vexed question and found that Wollondilly was the fastest council in the Sydney area for DA approvals, averaging just 61 days. In contrast, Georges River ranked as the slowest, with homeowners waiting an average of 289 days for approval.
I’m pleased to say that Hornsby ranked 5th out of the 33 councils surveyed—great!—with an impressive average time for assessment of a DA of 95 days. That’s just over 3 months.
Of course, our hope is that our meticulous portfolio of documents, our attention to regulatory detail, and a strong plea from our expert town planner will result in Council being able to swiftly tick all the boxes it must tick.
Ticking the boxes [Hornsby Council website]
Those experts
All the advice to would-be homeowners (like me) is to ‘involve the professionals’ when preparing a DA. We’ve done that, with reports from surveyor, civil engineer, landslip assessor, arborist and biodiversity expert, bushfire risk assessor, landscaper, waste management expert, heritage impact assessor, BASIX compliance consultant, stormwater management expert, a town planner who prepared a Statement of Environmental Effects—and even pre-lodgement advice from Council itself.
As the town planner concluded in the SEE: ‘The proposed development will provide for a greatly improved social and economic benefit over existing site circumstances.’
Let’s hope Council agrees. Quickly.
What might trip us up?
Tree removal
Our application proposes the removal of one tree. Numerous column inches have been devoted in the various reports to this one tree, bless it. There are a total of seven ‘relevant’ trees within and adjacent to the block which are greater than 1.5m in height. Six can be retained, but it one will ‘conflict’ with the installation of the proposed driveway.
I went through a stage of suggesting a curve in the driveway to accommodate this tree—a blackbutt, by the looks of it—but have you ever had to regularly reverse out of a driveway with a dogleg in it? Not ideal. Goodbye tree.
If Council agrees.
That dreaded asbestos
Regular readers will recall an early post about the history of the site, which was contaminated with asbestos but remediated by the Loreto Sisters before they put it on the market. The sales contract for the block included a certification that we’re ‘asbestos free’. Obviously I wouldn’t have bought the block without it.
From the SEE: ‘Remediation of all known contamination at the site has been successfully validated in conjunction with the requirements of the approved RAP and considerations made within this report. The remediation and validation works have successfully eliminated the risks to future site receptors without the need for further management.’
That one important piece of paper.
The neighbours & me
Part of the DA process includes Council notifying the neighbours of our plans, with a window of opportunity for them to raise any objections. Now, I’m acquainted with the neighbours who own the blocks on either side of mine—we have a WhatsApp group!—and we’ve had some general, slightly cagey, discussions of our plans. On one side, the neighbours already have a DA going through the approval process. As their neighbour, I received the standard notification and so I know what’s in store.
Helpfully, Evan was able to model where the shadow of their proposed house will fall at different times of the year (it’s a two-storey building) and luckily found that my proposed solar array would never be shadowed. He checked where any windows might overlook my house and compromise privacy—after all, I do have an outdoor shower in the plans! However, he found no problematic issues that can’t be solved with some judicious planting of a clump of tall vegetation.
So no objections from me.
And hopefully none from them.
Adding to Sydney’s housing stock. We’re the yellow rectangle in the centre.
Anything else?
Perhaps it’s unlikely that a DA would proceed through Council assessment without something being raised. Anything at all on our plans could be queried. I’m told to watch out for an ‘RFI’—‘Request For Information’. I like this terminology. Not an ‘objection’. Not a ‘refusal’. Just a friendly invitation to a discussion, let’s talk it over.
At least I can dream.
Field of Dreams
Another great read Annette. And how exciting! Lodging planning approval is a big celebratory step. Congratulations! Ours took 5 weeks. We had gone through the shires heritage regulations with a fine toothed comb and thought we had everything in place. All the tests had been done so we were fairly confident we would succeed. Our neighbours, although initially wary were on board and they let us know when they got their letters. Then we had a phonecall. Have you considered...as there is a precedent in the street. We had, but didn't put it in the plan. But, yes we will do that. And planning permission was granted. The next day we lodged building approval and that took 10 days and by the end of that month earthworks were underway. Many people in our town have to wait 6 months or more so attention to detail pays off.