We Might Be Getting There...

The meeting with Council on Monday went well enough, considering that they weren't about to start taking our desires to heart and doing the best by us, they've still got their own goals that run perpendicular to those of us mere residents of their domain.

We had a win on the requirement to upgrade the entire length of the laneway to our block, but even though the previous developer paid out a hefty sum to get this same Council to upgrade the roadway for the subdivision in the first place, we're still going to have to build their intersection for them, and that will need to be to the appropriate standards.

They've also indicated that they're willing to alter the timing for when this requirement needs to be met. We can do it prior to pouring the slab on the house, which means we'll be able to build the shed sometime this year, after all. That is, of course, assuming they cannot think of anything else to hit us with.

So, six months down the track and we're pretty much where we hoped to be sometime back in January. I posted a letter off to them today, requesting the changes discussed in the meeting, and the manager there stated at the time that he would deal with it very quickly. As long as I haven't missed out any words like "reflections" or included any words that shouldn't be in the letter, then by this time next week I hope we will be in possession of the appropriately amended document. From there it's construction certificate and the joy of building!!

It was touch and go there for a while. The DW is still keen to pack the whole adventure in and spend our hard earned money on something that already has a house etc. and I must admit that over the last few days, or weeks, I've considered the same myself. At the moment I'm in the mental gutter, not quite knowing where to go with it all, not really wanting to think about it, but still picking at it even though it's painful. Stupid behaviour for a grown (if not mature) person. ;-)

Theoretically, once we are over these initial humps we should see some clear sailing ahead. The private certifier is to take care of all the future inspections, with the exception of the sewerage system, and once we have the laneway sorted out to pour the footings then we should be able to take advantage of the new exempt development rules and do pretty much what we want. It's just that, faced with $3k of fencing, and a rough estimate (from Council) of $5k of roadworks for the intersection (I hate to think of what upgrading the entire lane would have cost) we've still got a fair bit to spend before we can begin thinking about all the spending we need to do on the house.

Weighing up against the idea of giving up on this path and setting off down another is the continued high price of land with houses on it. Anything with a house in the district is going for well over $400k, especially if it has water. At least we have a nice parcel of good land, with water, all for a decent price. Just a shame we can't take it to a different Council area LOL!

I think in a couple of days, once the strain of travel has worn off, the weekend has rolled around, and we've had a chance to play out there again we'll begin to forget all the stress and concentrate on the good aspects of the whole thing, and all will be well again. I hate being uncertain about planting trees, and I know they're itching to go in the ground :-)