Hi,
can anyone give me a ball park figure of the possible costs to get drawings and plans to the stage of being approved by council? I have a quote from one company but want to make sure that's reasonable.
Thanks
How long is a piece of string? It depends heavily on what you are trying to get approved. I'd also make the point that the quality of the consultant can have a heavy baring on:
1. If you get an approval at all;
2. How long it takes to get an approval;
3. What is approved;
4. How expensive it is to build
5. What price you will get for the end product
What I'm trying to get at is that you are asking the absolute least important question.
APerry wrote:How long is a piece of string? It depends heavily on what you are trying to get approved. I'd also make the point that the quality of the consultant can have a heavy baring on:1. If you get an approval at all;
2. How long it takes to get an approval;
3. What is approved;
4. How expensive it is to build
5. What price you will get for the end product
What I'm trying to get at is that you are asking the absolute least important question.
Hi Alistair,
thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm trying to get approval for 4 units/townhouses, aimed at the first home buyer end of the market. I understand that it can take anywhere from 6 months to 18 months to get approval. I have an idea of what the build cost will be and also what price I am likely to get. Since you say that I am asking the absolute least important question – can you tell me what I should be asking?
Thanks in advance.
You should be asking if the people you are using are any good, the cost in terms of fees will likely be inconsequential compared to the cost of using poor quality consultants. Depending on where you are building I would expect costs of between $10K – $20K. In some areas you can just get the designer to do everything, in others you would want to use a consultant town planner as well, which would bump the cost up between $6K – $8K, hence the large range. The time frame can be as little as 3 months but 6 months is a more realistic minimum, it shouldn't take more than 12 months.
What is the state and what is the council?
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Victoria, Frankston council
If it were in NSW I could give you some guidance but vic is out of scope for me.
If I were you I would talk to Oscar from here www.completedevelopment.com.au
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Thanks
You are looking at circa $30k!
best to speak to oscar about this, Very easy to deal with him!
In Frankston the cost will be at the lower end of what I quoted. You can probably just get draftsperson to do the design and planning application.
@ mbuilding- 30k for planning and builder approval. Are the drawings done in golden ink.
Youd be looking at 2-3k for planning drawings another 2/3k for working drawings. Hiring a planning consultant for a cover letter for application to council will cost you around 1500. Or for services just at a hourly rate is a bout $200 a hour. Worth every penny though. They might look at your site and say. Well instead of building 4 3 bed homes.
you could build 6 2 bed home + study within planning regs.
And then council application fees are around on average 0.125 percent of the total development cost. And then there's some misc costs like if you have to get a contour plan, civil engineer for flood risk areas, footing/soil report.
Thanks Wilko.
That's hiring the services individually.
a consulting company would charge you their fee plus a bit extra to organise "all that"
But hiring individually will save you a few thousand a least. Once you learn it once you won't forget
contour plans prob 500-700 average
and footings reports depending on soil type around 800-1000 inc gst.
These charges would vary say in a mining town or regional. But for Melbourne you should be able to find decent people for those prices.
And when you apply for council. Just apply for "planning permission" only not planning and building. Use a private building certifer.
also I would recommend speaking to a planning consultant first because new laws are coming out that mean if you can put forward a complying development (or comply with everything all but one thing— council would only need to assess the one non complying problem) that complies with res code that a certified planning consultant will be able to certify your plans. Without ever having to go to council. This means that if you got your plans drawn up to comply with res code. That your planning consultant could sign off the plans. In 2 to 3 days and then you private building certifier could tick it off in 2 days -5 days.
This is going to change the way people apply for developments to council. By cutting that 3-6 month design and planning stage down to under a month!! Get excited about that
Personally I would recommend talking with Alistair who has already responded to your post.
He won't promote his services but his family business runs a Town Planning operation with a very good reputation in the Melbourne area.
Cheers
Yours in Finance
Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
Wiko
I wish it was in golden ink!!! haahaha
I may have to get some contact details of you, if it can be done at that price.
My costing(Or that is what i am paying) includes
Town planner fee for site analysis
Draft design
surveyor fee
storm water engineer
landscaping
structure engineer
may be i didn't go for cheapest guy in town. but i am happy t with his work so far.
Lovely dream Wilko, but its not going to happen. This would require totally rewriting the legislation relating to town planning. At the moment the individual councils are the planning authority in their geographic area and they can choose, and often do, to delegate responsibility to their planning department. To have authority to sign off on anything, under the existing legislation, a planning consultant would need to be delegated authority by the specific council they are dealing with the same way that council planning departments are, it is not possible for there to be a central certifying body under this legislation. I hope I'm wrong though.
Hi – as the others have said that is a very difficult question to answer and will depend on so many factors.
* Just an important note – at least I think it is. Is it a design that you have used before or are you looking for them to develop the concept for you.
* Are they going to release the dwg files.
* Get something in writing that the concept and design is yours not theirs.
This issues will become very important if as you say you want them to bring it to a "certain stage". If you want to sell with approvals and not build it you want these things covered off. Good fun though!
A 4 unit job could be cheaper than some of the prices quoted above but one simple item such as storm water engineering requirements could add an extra 5k. No harm in drawing up a list of your top 3 based on recommendations and their portfolio of work and then factoring price later.
Would they offer a fixed price? How much are revisions?
Will you get 3d renderings that you can use in your marketing campaign or are these extra. What software are they using. Almost everyone uses the same programs but check. Are you going to use engineers they recommend etc or will you to that separately.
In the end a bad design will cost just a much to build (or more ) as a good design so go for quality. My preference is to get the DA and CC drawings done at the same time but that will depend a lot on your council.
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Thank you all for your comments and recommendations it's all very useful.
I'll just comment on the new rules for SA,
attached the link for the new rules for planning
http://www.sa.gov.au/upload/franchise/Housing,%
20property%20and%20land/PLG/Private%20certification/Private_certification_planning_information.pptx
not every house is able to be privately planning certified
you have to be in certain areas which are designated as res code areas. Basically any area within 2-3 km of a main road or transport route..
and you HAVE to be complying with all the rules (or all the rules but one), in which case the council would only need to asses the one deviation from the res code requirements and will refer back to the development policy.
it basically stream lines the planning requirement and says if you can build a house with the min pos areas and side set back of 900 mm and you stick to the frontage and min block size that is in the development plan for that area that you can get it approved. There are some difficulties with it though still, it will only accept 2 carparks in the form of 1 in front of another ie the standard 1 garage / 1 carpark in front. And a double garage to get your 2 carparks for a 3-4 bed home. Would have to be your 1 alteration from the res code requirements. Any more then 1, you have to be assessed on merit by the council. There's also stuff in there like if your a cat 2 application and the planning consultant is the one that ticks it off, that your plans have to be available to anyone at the local council officers for. Free for 5 years. Basically the Council accept no responsibility for properties approved by a register planning certifier, which is fair enough. P
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