Tandaland

We decided to swing by our land last night to see what (if anything) was going on. As far as we know, we’re still waiting on permits and a start date…but I think someone forgot to pass on that message to the builders!
It appears that they’ve started prepping the site for construction!!

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The block has been leveled, a recess has been dug out where the garage will eventually be, and the site has stakes pegged around the boundary of the slab area. Given that they have nails in the top of them, I’m guessing they will use these to put strings on to work out where to dig trenches for the waffle slab.

I think perhaps we are lucky that Urbanedge are building two other houses in the estate (one two doors down, and the other around the corner in the next street). It appears that all three blocks are in the same state, suggesting that it’s easier for them to just do all three preps at once.. even if we don’t have all the relevant permits finalised.

One thing is for sure, they’re definitely getting serious… and the best way to tell that is when a portaloo turns up! (this is actually on one of the other Urbanedge sites)

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Gotta love our local governments.

Urbanedge are ready to go, and have everything lined up and ready to build our home, but believe it or not they have to wait for a Legal Point of Discharge permit! This is a $50 piece of paper that details exactly where our waste point needs to go into the pipe at the back of the block. Craziness!

Urbanedge have been on the case though, hassling the council for the paperwork… as there are two other houses they’re building in our estate also held up by the same paperwork I’d imagine. I might add that they’re the only ones in the estate that have started too, so a big thumbs up for them!

My uncle gave me a call this morning with some interesting news! Apparently yesterday afternoon they went and had a look at our block (the live about 5 minutes down the road), and it appears that there is some action on our block!

According to my uncle, the block has been levelled in preperation for doing the slab and there were a couple of people their with laser sights measuring up bits and pieces. Whilst this isn’t exactly “startng the build” it is certainly a good sign! So, just to see what has been happening, we’ve decided to go to the block tonight and see what all the fuss is about!

It appears that someone removed our boundary pegs! How rude! It appears that when the rear neighbours put up their temporary fencing that they disturbed/removed/relocated our boundary pegs, meaning that the land now needs to be re-surveyed.

It makes me wonder what happens if a bunch of kids come to an estate and move all the boundary markers 2 feet to the right. Could result in some interesting court action in a decade or two! It’s odd that such an important thing is left to 4 bits of wood sticking in the ground….

So all the tick boxes are ticked, all the papers are signed, all the money has been paid…. no we’re just waiting for the phone call to tell us when we’re building. Urbanedge Homes have been great so far (in fact we love them at the moment), and we’ve really got no reason to complain… but man I wish they’d hurry up and get the permits and stuff done! It may well be that our plans are sitting out the Council’s office, or with the estate awaiting someone to rumber stamp our house…. but ugggh! The way I see it, the land titled on the 2nd, so if it takes four weeks to get the rest of the paperwar sorted out, we should be starting in the next fortnight. But still no word….maybe I’ll give them a call and see what’s happening.