The holy battle for a building consent
For any house-dreamer, the term building consent gives a chill from head to toe straight away. We were not different than others. The perspective of getting into this battle with council – hereafter named ‘the Devil’ – impacted on our choice of a local architect and on some of design decisions. In the last months we heard stories of long, painful and costly processes of getting a permit for any kind of building. But that was mainly in town, where it seems to be crazy. On our side, we were lucky not to have to build in a small section subdivision, where an army of experts have to determine where you put your house, your fence, your driveway, your sewage pipes and your mother-in-law. In our case, when the limits of your lot are hundreds of meters away, it was easier.
With our architect, we worked to be able to present plans as fast as we could in order to deal with the unavoidable issues that were due to arise. It took a month to draft plans and make little adjustments. As our architect mentioned, we were very lucky to ask for this consent now, because the law on windows is due to change in October. From that date, all new dwellings will have to have double glazing windows. A rule that would condemn all our great restored timber windows to the fires of hell! Ouuuf, that was lucky!
On the 30th of May, our architect had the first meeting with the Devil. It seems all went well with the plans, but in the back of our minds we thought it was too easy. The Devil found an odd expertise that could slow our process, gnark gnark! Which one? Well…on how we are going to spread our s..t in the bush basically. So, there we go, 2 weeks and $1600 later, we had to provide them with a report on where the wastewater dripping lines will be lined up in the bush…and so the building consent process began. Tic tac tic tac.
The wait continued. A week later, a letter arrived with serious issues to sort on our plans, involving a scary mix of letters and figures (NZ1034?), basically meaning some of our timber was not big enough on the deck – or some similar thing. Luckily, our architect defeated the Devil and sent some corrected plans without the use of a crucifix or blessed water. What would be next?
Another week later, the Devil – mimicking a woman’s voice over the phone – thought he would strike and take our souls away. But we were prepared and provided clues on how we would respect the QEII Trust covenant with regard to colours of roof, walls and windows. Ah ah, good try Lucifer!
In the meantime, we found out that our application could be followed up on the Devil’s website (www.tcdc.govt.nz). So all strikes and blows could be foreseen before the letters even arrived! Was that another trick to distract our attention and attack from the side?
Eventually, 5 weeks after the application, exhausted by nights of watching our backs – and sides – we received the letter with the invoice. After a check for poison on the paper, it seems we have our consent!
Thanks to all the saints – and our architect – for that good news!
But it’s not finished. At building stage, we will have to call for Lucifer’s messengers 10 times on site to check on us. We’ll be ready and waiting!