Services

Town Planning

Town Planning is the most critic step in the development process. Until a town planning permit is approved, there is NO development.

Not all construction needs town planning - for example; most single houses on a single block of land does NOT need a town planning (only when a site has a restriction or overlay this is required). In this situation, you generally just need a simple building permit.

What Is A Town Planning Permit?

A town planning permit is essentially permission to plan for a development according to a set of conditions that council will determin. This is done via a Town Planning permit (the process of this can be seen lower in this section).

The main reasoning for a town planning permit is to ensure that what ever is planned by the developer is reasonable (as assessed by the local Council - or VCAT in situations where a reasonable outcome cannot be resolved with Council). The main objective here is for council to ensure that their local policies are adhered to while the immediate neighbourhood is taken into consideration in terms of any planned development. It is generally an interactive process to ensure that everyones needs are taken into consideration, not just the developer.

A town planning application is submitted to council with a combination of architectural drawings and written reports. It is councils task then to assess the application, determine if more inforation is required (along with any initial issues they see) then advertise the project to the immediate neighbours. After all this, a council decision will be made along with a set of conditions. These conditions are then used as a base for all following processes (i.e. Subdivision, construction, etc). All of these conditions MUST be met by the end of the development otherwise a "Statement Of Compliance" will not be issued.

Once the Town Planning permit is obtained, the following steps are now more assured and are generally a matter of formality.

The AbodeDAC process:

We have worked extremely hard and smart to make the most unpredictable stage of a development (in terms of time and outcome) much more efficient while obtaining better results. The on-line system we have created as a result is simply exciting while being completly informative, efficient and thorough.

It is highly recommended that you watch the "Town Planning Tour (Audio and Visual)" located to the top right of this screen for more details of this very exciting process. This will take you behind the scenes as well as show you what to expect.

The general ideals for this process is:

Creating a system that is completely efficient - this is done by fully automated process - from on-line quotes done by the client (with instant acceptance, payment etc) to the automatic notification of all the contractors or responsible parties of their steps immediately once the prior step is done. This means that the second that the prior step is completed, the following step is automatically actioned. All contractors have deadlines and penalties for late works.

All contractors have all documents and data noted on-line so there are no delays with awaiting information or retutned phone calls.

AbodeDAC have created a very detailled and thorough process for all Town Planning steps. If there is a "chance" that council will ask for a step, we will generally do it from the start - this saves months of delays. The content that we provide for a Town Planning permit is more excessive than what is required, however, we find that this ensures a quicker and more favorable outcome. Due to this well thought out system, a very strategic step by step process has been created to keep efficiency at the forefront.
Communication, communication, communication - nothing is better for good relationships than good communication. This on-line system will keep you fully informed 24 hours a day. This is done via:
a) Automatically generated emails at the end of every step so you are fully notified of the process.
b) Gantt Charts / Time Lines - this new process that we have developed will keep you informed by indicating what the origional expected completetion date is / was in relation to the current expected date (updeated in real time). In addtion to this, it will show what has been done, what is still to come and what stage of the process or what contractor was overdue or early.
Full disclosure - all documentation is available for all contractors as well as yourself at any time. This saves requesting this and also makes it available to you anywhere in the world any time as long as you have internet connection.
Transparency - if you see what we see, and we have nothing to hide (good or bad), this only builds strong and trusting relationships. This is what this on-line site is all about.

What is Involved in a Town Planning Permit

Each Town Planning permit is often unique with what is required, however, the main core items do not change with any town planning application. AbodeDAC now have company policy where we make certain additional documentation or steps manditory. This is due to past knowlege and experience with how to make a project more efficient and more profitable. See "The Evolution of AbodeDAC in Town Planning Applications" section below for an explination of this policy.

The simple fact is that if you provide to council not just more, but more professional documented applications, the process will be better and much faster. See below a list of what we provide as a minimum requirement with notes on each. You can also see samples of each of these documents by clicking on the link at top of the page.

Task / Document:	Council Manditory?	Comments
Application Form	YES	Standard Application Form
Current Title (new search)	YES	An older title will sometimes be accepted, but if anything has changed on the title in recent months, this can cause major issues later on once discovered.
Feature Survey (with relocation survey)	NO	Not all councils will request a proper survey by a landsurveyor. Most councils will NOT ask for a relocation survey. However, a proper relocation survey (including contours) not only makes for a better design, but could potentially save you thousands of dollars and months of delays during the construction process as a result. Any firm not providing these as part of their standard package is not doing their clients justice!
Architectural Drawings	YES	All applications require architectural drawings, however, ALL of AbodeDAC's drawings are done in full colour (printed generally to A1 in colour also), and are very well presented and informative. Great for pre-sales also.
Landscape Plan	NO	Landscape plans are not always manditory in the initial steps with council but are gererally required later regardless via the conditions of the permit. If you dont do it now, you will have to do it later, doing now is just a better and quicker application. All AbodeDAC landscape plans are done in Colour.
Materials Schedule	NO	Most councils will ask for this at some time (not always). Either way, it is a great thing to have as it forms part of the development and ensure that a builder clearly knows what is expected and is given a clear picture of the owner and architect's intent.
Response to ResCode	YES	A complete report that AbodeDAC has tailored looking at each of the local policies as well as each of the clauses within ResCode. The report we do is generally around 30 pages long as is very comprehensive.
Design Response Plan and Report	NO	Council will generally require some kind of written response for the design, however, this could be done briefly in the ResCode report. AbodeDAC take this further by having a separate report along with streetscape drawings and other supporting photos. This is a very beneficial part of the application.
Neighborhood Character Plan and Report	NO	Council will generally require some kind of written response for the neighbourhood, however, this could be done briefly in the ResCode report. AbodeDAC take this further by having a separate report along with existing streetscape drawings and other supporting photos with particular emphasis on aspects of the neighbourhood that will help your application.

Depending on the individual cricumstances of each application, there will be a need for additional requirements (not always) such as traffic surveys, arborist reports (trees), build over easement applications, etc etc. These would all be requested as early as possible in the application to ensure a speedy process.

In our experience, the more information and detail that is added to the development in the planning phase, the better quality the final product and more value in terms of profitability it can return.

The Evolution of AbodeDAC in Town Planning Applications:

In the early years of doing Town Planning applications, a very mis-guided view of doing applications as cheap as possible to help the client out was used. The reality however was very different.

As the developments progressed, we found that too many errors or unforseen items would come up which resulted in a guaranteed two outcomes - large delays and additional cost. Both of these were not acceptable to our clients.

As time has gone on, our approach is now completely different from where we used to be and where many firms are still today. It is crucial to AbodeDAC that a development be planned thoroughly and properly. The main items to ensure this are noted above in the table in detail and summarised as:

Land Survey by licensed land surveyor:

Relocation survey - this is critifcal to ensure that we know the exact location of the fenclines in relation to the title boundary. Without this, we could build (or at least set out a house which is more common) onto land that is not ours to use. This results in new plans, and often amended plans with council which takes a minimum of 1 month. The cost of this is off-set by the use of the same survey during the subdivision process.
Contour Survey - this is also crucial as it is used for things such as floor heights, site cuts, drainage plans, etc etc. To do a development without one of these is simply looking for trouble, (delays, and unforseen expenses).
Feature Survey - more and more councils are now asking for these to be done by licensed surveyors due to the issues that have been experienced in the past. Soon this will be manditory with all councils (a good thing).
Landscape Plan - by doing this ealy, it will save around 1 month later on once the council have issued their conditions. It also helps with proper planning from a much earlier stages as well as illustrates to council that what is proposed will not be a detriment to the neighbourhood in terms of planting.