How to best take advantage of new R codes in Perth

[Aaron Sice]

They have some ambitious plans at Stirling, which will be great if/when they get off the ground. They are significantly short on [human] resources though, with even simple DA's taking minimum 28 days to even be allocated to a planner

Speaking of plans such as this, albeit smaller scale, how much value do you think is in buying a house in an outer area (>50km from CBD) with no amenities (local shops, school, cafe etc), knowing that an entire town centre (shops, school, cafes etc) is planned and will be developed within a couple years. Is the actual development of the town centre likely to result in a spike in CG? Or because it's been planned for a while and is public knowledge, has that ship sailed?

Cheers

butler works for me, becaus eof upcoming freeway access and train to joondalup.

yanchep same but again, delays in infrastructure. planned, but when?

dunno if the ship has sailed, getting in now ensures better buying imo.

afa spearwood is concerned, cockburn are reasonably progressive. their ADPs allow for better application of the codes (averaging boundary wall lenght across all boundaries, 40% open space* etc) and spearwood has R60 zonings so you can capitalise on the heights for a better looking development, even if you only do 2 storey.

the closer you get to that magic 12x number of apts without going over, the better it all becomes.

 

[redwing]

butler works for me, becaus eof upcoming freeway access and train to joondalup.

yanchep same but again, delays in infrastructure. planned, but when?

dunno if the ship has sailed, getting in now ensures better buying imo.

The ship has sunk out that way years ago, its a wreck nowadays

 

[UrbanPlanner]

The ship has sunk out that way years ago, its a wreck nowadays

Directions 2031 has some pretty serious population growth earmarked in that NW corridor so I would agree. With the freeway/rail extensions as well, surely this would contribute to the growth.

I wasn't really referring to anywhere specific but places like Byford, Banksia Grove, Butler come to mind - where there's plenty of houses and alot of facilities (schools, shopping centres etc) planned for the near future but not much there now.

 

[INXS]

The ship has sunk out that way years ago, its a wreck nowadays

The ship is not even out of the port yet. My land that titled 4 weeks ago in Amberton Estate, Eglington is already selling for 30k more than what I paid for it. Developer is having to bring forward releases because of the demand. Mind you I prefer it if others have there blinkers on, it makes it that much easier for those who don't.

 

[EagerAchiever]

Hi All,

Some interesting points made throughout and some good reading.

Have many of you had dealings with City of Gosnells and if so, your thoughts on the current and future state of the city? The land options seem ok at first glance but there are many factors to be looking at as well as the attitude of the city to developments.

I have started looking around again for my next opportunity and any information/ guidance you would like to share would be much appreciated. My current focus is within 15km of the CBD SOR. Looking at development options on land R30-60.

I was told the other day to watch out for the soils in the Gosnells area, can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Jake D]

In a previous role I designed drainage and earthworks for residential construction approvals. We'd be in contact with LGAs often, and all our work was based on soil reports as per BCA's soil classifications. (A, S, M, H class)

Gosnells was one of the biggest pains to deal with.
Firstly, there were a lot of areas that were genuinely clayey and therefore required extensive earthworks, complex/large drainage systems or both.
Secondly, regardless of site classification, they required drainage designs to suit a 100 year storm event (almost everyone else required only 20 year event - this roughly means dealing with about 2x as much water)
Thirdly, even when street drainage existed, and a connection to that system was allowed, this was only allowed as an overflow, on top of the massively over designed system on site; most other LGAs allowed the outflow into the street system to be included in storage size calculations, greatly reducing costs to owners/builders.

Gosnells was a pain in the bum, and even when we could get drainage/earthworks designs approved, they were generally quite costly. I have a vivid memory of one developer flipping out over the amount of time it took to get his design approved, and the 3-figure earthworks quotes he had received. And all he wanted to do was chop up a huge block and sell off the extra land. (from memory, about 2000sqm to 4x500sqm)
We had another guy looknig at about $7000 worth of drainage work, just to get his patio approved.

As a disclaimer, I haven't been involved in this work since 2010, thing may have changed, but I highly doubt it.

Also, If you do need this kind of work done, Structerre are about the only consultants who could get drainage plans approved at all with Gosnells back then. (I had a strong suspicion that everyone else refused to even try, we got THAT much Gosnells work in our inboxes.)

 

[EagerAchiever]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the insight and experience you had, much appreciated. One can only hope that they have evolved from then.

Do you know how much it costs to have a soil classification carried out? Is there a rough cost that can be applied for example for a given site size? My last build had 3 holes drilled spaced in a triangle across the site (Structerre carried this out through the builder)

Anybody else have any experience with them lately 2011-2012 ?

 

[Jake D]

Off the top of my head, a soil classification report is less than $200.

 

[UrbanPlanner]

yeah we are headed to council finally for the west pde development. its only been 9 months.....

Aaron what happened with West Pde? I saw it on the agenda all ready to be approved and then saw in the minutes it had been withdrawn? Council obviously givin you a hard time?

 

[Aaron Sice]

Aaron what happened with West Pde? I saw it on the agenda all ready to be approved and then saw in the minutes it had been withdrawn? Council obviously givin you a hard time?

one of the planners didn't read the plans properly (in fact, didn't read the plans at all, nor the Neighbourhood Context Report) - never mind the fact it's been in there nearly a year now.

so the report was incorrect, Ms McTiernan flipped out when she saw the plot ratio and how incorrect everything has been since day dot, so at 11:59:58, it was pulled and has to be re-designed and re-applied.

the neighbour was complaining about overshadowing as well, was on the phone to the mayor. the overshadowing is compliant as per the codes so there's no grounds for refusal on that basis.

now the application is tarnished - we've gone into the first meeting with a loaded gun on the front foot, now i'm scrambling for ammo off the back foot.

what bugs me is that the assessing planner did his own calcs with a scale rule instead of actually reading the plans and came up with entirely different figures EVERYWHERE - then admitted in the meeting it wasn't the most accurate way to measure.

why do they insist on CAD plans if they're going to measure manually?

to say i'm disappointed with the process would be an understatement.

 

[UrbanPlanner]

Wow sounds like a royal f**kup, and Councils wonder why they have such a bad rep. This is an example of where DAP's are actually useful (if you're over 3.5mil) as they lock the Council into an 80 day timeframe and remove the politics (i.e. neighbour making invalid objections).

I find it astonishing that they think they can make you change your design. Regardless of the plot ratio, it's still only 3 storeys, the built form outcome will be the same whether plot ratio complies or not, it's within 250m of a train station, AND they approved a 6 (could've been 5) storey development right behind yours!

McTiernan has certainly done a backflip from her PRO-development days as Planning Minister..

 

[Aaron Sice]

oh i know - all of this are points i will be reminding council of.

i've alredy changed the design, reduced plot ratio significantly to the point where it's suddenly not viable to construct.

seven studios or seven 2 bedders, it's not going to change the demographic living there. the fact is the site can yield 7 dwellings, whether they're 100sqm 3x2s or 40sqm studios, the ancillaries are the same (1 carbay, 1 store) in this location.

this design is starting to look like a horse designed by a committee - a camel.

if it gets refused we might reapply with a DAP.

 

[gooram]

Off the top of my head, a soil classification report is less than $200.

A full geotechnical report that is required by council will cost you around 2k.

 

[Jake D]

A full geotechnical report that is required by council will cost you around 2k.

Yes, That's right. But I was responding to EagerAchiever's question about "three holes in a triangle". and had feasibility and due diligence in mind, rather than actual design, as per his previous question. (I probably could have mentioned the difference between the two, but it's been a while since I've worked in this area and been in this mindframe)

Also, a full geotech is not always required, and a good designer can get a long way with a soil classification report with the right council.