Victory, Sort Of...

The new development consent arrived in the mail today. It largely fulfills the agreed outcomes of the meeting with Council, excepting the fact that they've inserted a clause that means we have to upgrade 50m of the laneway along with the intersection, to the new standard. I guess it's Council policy to provide a little bit of punishment with every success. You might think you've reached an agreement with them, but it seems they're always going to try and squeeze a little more out of you. At least we don't have to upgrade half a kilometre of laneway...

All in all, the result is good enough for now. We can get ourselves a construction certificate and build the shed, which was the original goal of the project. Once we've completed that bit, it might be time to take the whole sordid tale to the mayor and his cohorts, and then to the media, and see if we can get some of those conditions altered further in our favour. After all, I was reading in Council's business paper that they've approved the new road specifications, and it states that RG1 roads will only be allowed for right-of-way lanes and those experiencing less than 16 vehicle movements per day, contrary to the guy's statement that the RG1 standard no longer applies at all. We wont stir the nest for now, we can proceed with our plans for a bit until we run up against the requirements of the new conditions, but at some stage we're going to need a better reckoning, just for the principle of the thing. If we let them get away with it, who's next on the list to suffer?

So, from here, it's construction certificate, then a bit of earthworks, then some building. I'll need to put in a bit of extra fence before then, hopefully I'll be able to do that this weekend, and I must also shift some of our stockpile around so that the dozer can get in there and push the dirt where it needs to go. Exciting, productive work, rather than the mental gymnastics and social sorties required to date.