Chapter 3 Dealing with government agencies (sketch)

Having visited enough of the country, I think I have a good understanding of what Australia would look like without development regulations. I would imagine they would be very messy. Regulations are a necessary evil. In Australia, they are also used to force developers to make tangible contributions to the local community.

We talked about development control in the first chapter. This chapter is mostly about getting the design approved.

Contrary to what I sometimes hear people say, the local authorities are ordinary people like you and me, and they have the power to reject a development application. However, if we have done our homework well, the development project should be approved. This is particularly true in Australia, where development applications can be resolved in court. Much to the dismay of Europeans. My father for example could never get over this peculiarity of the Australian government.

Different countries have different planning systems, but they often boil down to two variants. Some countries are only interested in the appearance of buildings, while others want to see all the technical details.

Both systems have their pros and cons. Providing less detailed information can get the project approved quickly, but this has happened so often in Australia that, when we started servicing the building, the initial bedrooms became smaller, the plant rooms were the wrong size, and suddenly a block of units might lose a few in the process. Suddenly, the business case is under pressure.

On the other hand, when municipalities request detailed drawings, more work is required upfront. However, once everything is approved, there won't be any surprises. Unfortunately, this process is much more laborious and takes longer to obtain a permit.

The benefits of pre-lodgements (sketch)

Most local councils are happy to provide a non-binding appraisal of a development project. The documentation they require can change from place to place, but generally, the architectural drawings will suffice. The council will review the appraisal and provide a brief report outlining their observations. As I said, this is not a binding document, but it will give an indication of the council's position on what we are about to propose.

I was once interested in buying a very old property. The building was more like a ruin. It was also located in the historic centre of town. I wanted to make an offer, but I was unsure what the local council's requirements would be regarding the restoration of the building. Making it extremely difficult to assess the property's value.

I convinced the owner to grant me an option to purchase the property for six months. During this time, I prepared some drawings and sent them to the council for a pre-lodgement appraisal. This was my way of finding out what I was getting into.

Engaging with the local authorities. The US story. The Surry Hills story. The Google office in Berlin (sketch)

In general, councils are not entities with which you negotiate. That was always my view until I worked on an industrial project in the US, where the developer promoted it to three different councils and literally told them, 'If you want it, give me your best conditions'.

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A friend once asked me to help him with a planning application for a pub in Surry Hills. Initially, I thought it would be easy. We compiled the documentation and sent it to the council. We didn’t bother having a pre-lodging meeting with them because the project was rather straightforward. It was mostly a change of use, from office space to a bar.

It took the council a while to get back to us. By the time they finally did, the project had already been rejected. I was very surprised by this. I couldn’t really understand what had happened. After all, we had only applied for minor changes to the façade. The building had already been constructed. It was an odd-looking building, but the damage to the neighbourhood had already been done.

What happened was very simple. With any development application, the council has to notify the residents. This gives them the opportunity to express their opinion about the project. In this particular project, an astonishing 67 people were against it. The whole street banded together to stop it, and the council was so overwhelmed that they didn’t want to review the project one more time. They were happy for it to be taken to court for a judicial decision.

Surprisingly, Google was also kicked out of the Kreuzberg area in Berlin because the locals protested about their development project (expand).

The development project planning requirements. The Manly story and key lessons learned.

As with many consultants, at a certain point in their career they try to go it alone. My situation was quite different; I was a stay-at-home dad at the time. It was difficult to find part-time work, so I decided the best approach would be to set up a small practice in the area and see if I could find any work.

Back then, I set up an architectural practice and placed an advertisement in a newspaper. Days passed with no response until, eventually, I received my first enquiry. A property owner wanted to know my fees for submitting an application to demolish and rebuild his garage. I didn’t think it would be a complicated job, so I offered to do it for under 1,000 dollars. When I think about this story now, I often smile and wonder why I priced my work so low.

Unsurprisingly, the property owner agreed to it very quickly.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the property was a listed building. I should have checked that before submitting my quotation. We weren't planning to do anything to the house itself, just the detached garage.

After my initial conversation with the council, it soon became clear that, to support my application, I needed a statement from a certified historian confirming that the garage was not of architectural value.

'Great,' I thought. 'How am I going to do that?'

Lesson #1 The importance of appointing the right consultant for the job.

Lesson #2 Strange things that can happen.

Jazzing up project documentation. Why we shouldn’t take consultant reports for granted. The road approval story (sketch)

I have always assumed that consultant reports are not editable. Although we often pay the bills, the report is not always in line with what we are looking for.

From my experiences in Manly, I have learned that it is important to pick the right consultant for the job. However, I have also noticed that we do not always need to take the documentation consultants produce for granted. I came to this realisation when working on a project that required approval from the road authorities.

Slow to start. Hurry to finish (sketch)

It is not unusual for a project to go back and forth between different departments. When it is finally approved, the management team realises that a lot of time has been wasted and that it now needs to be built much faster and starts pushing the design team to fast track everything. I have worked on many projects like these, and just when I think everyone has learned their lesson, along comes another one.

It goes without saying that this is not a good recipe to get the job done. It requires a great deal of experience to navigate a project that is working around the clock. My suggestions (expand).