Yahoo. We have progress!

After months of expert analysis, report writing, planning and problem solving, we were pretty keen to get straight into clearing the section as soon as we got our Resource Consent. So we did!

With the generous help of Kylie’s Mum, Dad and brother, we got stuck in and made massive progress over just one day. I loved it! It was a hard slog, but very satisfying to be finally making some progress.

Here are some progress photos. It was awesome to see the building platform appear from the overgrowth as we got our first glimpses of what it will be like living in our dream home.

Check out my NZ Herald story too, it has a lot more detail about our progress.

We got our Resource Consent approved. Yay!!!! So excited

Well the walls anyway. No seriously. Like a giant set of lego, our house will arrive on site in pre fabricated pieces and the walls will be up in a matter of hours. That’s something we can’t wait to see!

How you ask? Well we’ve decided to build our house with SIPs (structurally insulated panels) which are made by Christchurch based Method Building Systems. They’re brand new to New Zealand which means our house will be one of the first built this way. It also means our house will be built faster, it’ll be stronger and extremely energy efficient. We can’t wait!

Check out our more detailed explanation of building with SIPs here.

If there was one piece of advice we have from our experience so far, that would be to set up a pre-application meeting with the Council as soon as possible if you’re planning on building.

Our dealings we have had with the Council so far have only been positive. Both Kylie and I went into the consent application process with trepidation as almost every story we had heard or read about the Council tended to be negative. They’re often painted as the villains, preventing people from doing what they want to do on their own property.

But from the outset they have only been supportive of what, and how, we’re trying to build our dream home. And we put that down in the most part to discussing our plans with them in a pre-application meeting weeks before we even began pulling together our consent documents. We were able to verbalise what we were trying to achieve, the Council was able to respond and guide us in the right direction, alleviating any niggles down the track. We built up a positive rapport from that moment onwards and the process was actually pretty enjoyable.

The cost is $265 for the meeting and all key functions from Council sit around the table with you. Then that fee also meant we could contact the planner at any stage to help us with our application, ask questions or seek direction. It’s been the best money we have spent so far. Get more info on how to set up your own meeting here.

I’m in no doubt, should our application have come across their desks unannounced, it would have been hard work getting it across the line. But they were waiting for it to be submitted, knew us personally, and knew we weren’t trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

You can read more about our pre-applicaton meeting experience and pulling together our Resource Consent in my recent NZ Herald story.