Development Project - Stuck in a dilemma

[pi2012]

Hello All,

We have received DA to build 3 Units on the block. Now its stuck at the Engineering Department at the Council.

The story goes like this:
Stormwater Design-When engineer was drawing the Stromwater design, he asked me to check the StormWater Pit depth for the right calculations and after several attempts, i couldn't find the Pit. We then asked the council to show us the exact location of the pit. Council then sent me a drawing highlighting the exact location of the pit next door. I checked the pit again and guess what, couldn't find it again. We then submitted the engineer plans to the council and waited 6 weeks for their response and the response was "The pit depth next door is 750cm which is not enough, so we will have lay a new stormwater pipe to the next Legal Point of Dsicharge which is 90m away from our house at our cost".

Engineer again insist me to check the depth to make sure everything. So i got Plumber to come onsite and locate the pit for us which he couldn't find as well. He then got his Bob Cat to dig the easement to locate the Stromwater Pipe on both sides of the backyard and no stormwater pipe....its missing and the council claimed its there. Anyways, Engineer went back to the council with the mystery of missing stormwater pipe and Council came back to us today with the following reply:
"As discussed our staff have inspected the site and I can confirm that no drain or pit could be located. Therefore, the LPOD is to the Council drainage pit in front of (street address) with approximately 90m of outfall drainage required (minimum 225mm diameter) with on site detention required."

I would like to know if someone had faced such a dilemma with the council before and what are our options here.
I have been told that it will cost us alot to put a new stromwater pipe (digging nature strip and crossovers and fixing them).
Do we have an argument with the council that they have provided misleading information and they should allow us to discharge the stromwater on the street as they do allow for single dwellings..we are even happy to install Bigger capacity Rainwater Tanks as well.
Any advise is much appreciated.

 

[asdf]

Thats a nice pickle you've got there. I'm no expert but you can still only have one connection out there if its all strata but I'm assuming you want to torrens the development hence will need to spend... a lot. If the block is ankward, can be up to $25k. As for recourse to council for misprepresentation, and after all the legal wranglings, I'm sure they will always run with caveat emptor. It sux big time but thats the joy of development. Not really what you want to hear.... sorry...

 

[boomtown]

I dont really understand any of this but it sounds like the root cause is the depth of the neighbours storm water pit? Any chance you could compensate them to dig a new pit in their backyard?

 

[pi2012]

I dont really understand any of this but it sounds like the root cause is the depth of the neighbours storm water pit? Any chance you could compensate them to dig a new pit in their backyard?

Thanks for your reply.
OK...the root cause is the big expense to install a new Stormwater pipe at the front of the property all the way to the corner of the street (90m) and connect to the Legal Point of Discharge.

 

[Palabu]

That sucks, after getting DA you would have thought the rest was plain sailing. I noticed the council mentioned an on site detention system was required for the storm water. Have you discussed this with your engineer because this may cost a lot more that having to lay 90m of storm water piping? A detention system collects and temporarily stores the storm water before it drains away, thus not overloading the storm water pipes, these can be quite expensive to install.

 

[pi2012]

That sucks, after getting DA you would have thought the rest was plain sailing. I noticed the council mentioned an on site detention system was required for the storm water. Have you discussed this with your engineer because this may cost a lot more that having to lay 90m of storm water piping? A detention system collects and temporarily stores the storm water before it drains away, thus not overloading the storm water pipes, these can be quite expensive to install.

I know Palabu. We thought the hard bit was over when we received the DA
Yes, the council has asked for onsite detention system plus a new stormwater pipe under the nature strip and crossover all the way to Legal Point of Discharge. I was told by the Engineer that this may cost us $50,000 approx...
You think we can negotiaite with the council to waive onsite detention system as the storm water will be discharged dirctly to LPOD via new pipe?

 

[Palabu]

This will depend on what your engineer thinks. If your engineer thinks that a retention system is not required then you might be able to negotiate this point with the council. I know you will be crossing over a crossover and nature strip to get to the legal point of discharge but, I would have thought that if you didn't have to install a retention system it would be significantly cheaper. You should be able to have the storm water pipes laid for between $40 - $60 per linear metre plus whatever it costs for the crossover and nature strip. This should cost no where near $50,000 to do. The need for a retention system should depended on the size of the slope on the block, if the block is relatively level it should not need a retention system, but as I said your engineer should be able to confirm this.

Good luck

Paddy

 

[pi2012]

This will depend on what your engineer thinks. If your engineer thinks that a retention system is not required then you might be able to negotiate this point with the council. I know you will be crossing over a crossover and nature strip to get to the legal point of discharge but, I would have thought that if you didn't have to install a retention system it would be significantly cheaper. You should be able to have the storm water pipes laid for between $40 - $60 per linear metre plus whatever it costs for the crossover and nature strip. This should cost no where near $50,000 to do. The need for a retention system should depended on the size of the slope on the block, if the block is relatively level it should not need a retention system, but as I said your engineer should be able to confirm this.

Good luck

Paddy

Thanks Paddy.
Its council's policy to have an Onsite Detention System for Multi-Dwellings and this can't be waived.
The block is pretty flat with slight slope towards the front of the porperty. What i would like argue with the council is to let us have Bigger Storage Tanks, bigger than 2000L as suggested before and overflow towards the street via kerb.
I have spoken to the Builder and he is also suggesting the same thing and worst case scenario, if we happen to install a new strormwater pipe, according to the builder, it whould cost approx $10,000 - $15,000 which is a bit of relief as compared to $50,000.
Our Engineer is stupid...i guess he is not working for us...he is working for the council as he is not helpful at all and suggesting what council is saying.
I am here trying to argue with the council and he writing email to the council saying "For the record as per our discussion today, using a large rain water for each unit will not be acceptable as per the council guide line.". Now thats really Ridiculous

 

[kum yin lau]

Hi, I had the same problem with my 4 small house project. Not 90m but still cost me $16000 or so to complete the stormwater. we actually brought in our own stormwater man who redrew the builder's system, cutting down the retention tanks to 2 from 4. We also used the plastic thinggies.

2 years in the place, there's so little rain you wonder what the fuss was about.

However, my experience is you want to speedily finish the project so it's easier to accept the higher cost than you originally budgetted for. I hope you have some room to work with.

In my case, I had to contend with escalating interest rates [my project finished on me paying 10.79%] but the interesting part is high rates go with increasing prices & I didn't really chase the builders to finish quickly because the gain in capital values made up for the increased cost.

In your case, you will have lower interest costs but your end value may not go up from when you first started the process.

Good luck with your project
KY

 

[Rockstar]

You may need another engineer to look at the problem.
We have used on site detention with our rain water tanks on the duplex we are just completing. Water detention is all about slowing down the outflows in areas that are further away from the river/ocean to prevent all the water banking up and flooding lower lying areas. In our town there are areas closer to the river where detention is not needed because the council wants to get the water away as quick as possible. It's more to do with your location in relation to the river as to what measures of detention you require.

A larger tank may solve your problem but you need an engineer to certify the new design. Contact another engineer who is very familiar with your local council for some advice.

 

[pi2012]

You may need another engineer to look at the problem.
We have used on site detention with our rain water tanks on the duplex we are just completing. Water detention is all about slowing down the outflows in areas that are further away from the river/ocean to prevent all the water banking up and flooding lower lying areas. In our town there are areas closer to the river where detention is not needed because the council wants to get the water away as quick as possible. It's more to do with your location in relation to the river as to what measures of detention you require.

A larger tank may solve your problem but you need an engineer to certify the new design. Contact another engineer who is very familiar with your local council for some advice.

Thanks Rockstar.
Engineer from council is personally going to check the site next week and will discuss other avenues with me (as he told me on Friday)...so lets hope we will get away with bigger tanks and onsite detention system as its compulsary. The only concern is installing new stormwater pipe and infrastructure ..costs and time involved in doing such a thing.
Keeping fingures crossed...

 

[wylie]

I am a bit lost on the details of this BUT with our PPOR the drainage plan that came with our searches showed we had a connection in the street for our sewerage to connect to. We had a combine drain with our down hill neighbour, and when we lodged our plans for renovation, council told us we would be up for a new connection to the sewer in the street. Our plumber saved the day by pointing out that council had documented that there was an existing connection ready and waiting for us to simply connect to.

He told us to stand our ground as it could cost us between $10K to $15K (cannot remember exactly, but it was a big figure) to connect ourselves.

The paperwork bounced around in council for about ten weeks, which held everything up, but it didn't cost us anything except frustration at living in a building site for several weeks longer than necessary while they played "hot potato" with nobody wanting to have to allow for our new connection in their budget.

Eventually it was approved by "somebody" and we got the connection for free, due only to the council paperwork having been incorrect.

Thank you Mr Plumber. We would probably never have realised if he hadn't found the loophole for us.

Don't know if that helps you, but if they have made an error, you may be able to stand your ground and force them to honour it.

 

[Perp]

Do you have your own hydraulic consultant on side? If not, I'd highly recommend it. They not only know all sorts of technological solutions you may not have thought of, they also have contacts with all the right people in Council. Mine saved me over $100K - she gets a Christmas card and referrals.

 

[Rockstar]

Thanks Rockstar.

No worries mate.

Here is a shot of my current duplex system. The top pipe is the overflow. The bottom pipe has a restrictor hole of 35mm so that the flow rate is cut down. The tank is 5800 litre but the holding capacity is only 3000 litre. So there is an empty cavity of 2800 litres for the excess rainwater to bank up into at times of heavy rain. The system (cavity capacity) is designed on the surface area of roof catchment to cater for all but exceptional rainfall events.

You could go for a larger tank with a larger cavity to ensure that the flow is always kept to councils acceptable level.

 

[reeco]

Im confused. Is it a retention system or detention system. I know its a retention system on my site as i spent 3 months installing it. Yup it was huge and underground.

Some great info here!

cheers guys

 

[Rockstar]

Im confused. Is it a retention system or detention system.

Depends if you are retaining the water or detaining the water.

Don't you love the English language!

 

[fernfurn]

We had to have a system designed for a 2 0 0 y e a r f l o o d - in Melb! that ran from the back townhouse up to the front of the land (which sloped backwards, so it had to be set pretty deep up the front)then a massive holding tank under the front driveway with two pumps (one in case the other failed, of course if the electricity goes off, they both fail ???) This was then all pumped up about 1500H to the gutter. Council then went and put stormwater through the street a year later

 

[Perp]

We had to have a system designed for a 2 0 0 y e a r f l o o d - in Melb! that ran from the back townhouse up to the front of the land (which sloped backwards, so it had to be set pretty deep up the front)then a massive holding tank under the front driveway with two pumps (one in case the other failed, of course if the electricity goes off, they both fail ???) This was then all pumped up about 1500H to the gutter. Council then went and put stormwater through the street a year later

You can't tell me that they didn't know that the stormwater drain was on the cards a year earlier; it seems to take them years to get projects like that implemented. How frustrating! How much did your works cost? Would it have been worth postponing the development if you'd known?

 

[reeco]

love it indeed.

especially when ive had 1 or 5 wines. thats when it really shines