The real story of planning a development through Woollahra Council.

April 1 2008: Following an AAP meeting between Senior Planners we received approval (well not exactly, but it is a start). Ironic that the day should be April 1!

That’s 258 days since our submission.
(Average for Woollahra Council is 92 days ????)

Or looking another way…
8 months, 14 days
37 weeks
371,520 minutes
6192 hours

They argued for 40 minutes over their own ‘new’ condition that forces us to move our side boundary to a ridiculous 3 metres from the boundary of our neighbour and effectively changes the design completely. The only heart I can draw from this is that at least there are some people in council that have some decency and common sense.

They asked us to put in a Section 96 which means we can appeal and most likely have this decision reversed based on the fact that many of them believed the condition to be fundamentally unfair. In all likelihood we will have the building we first submitted being approved.

We feel relieved - at least we know we can build something.

Despite multiple fob offs and false promises we finally received a letter from council stating that our case will be held on April 1 2008 at a Woollahra council AAP meeting - close to 11 months (330 days) from our original submission.

Upon inspection of the report today, it appears that council want to approve our DA BUT have added a condition that effectively means a complete redesign. I have no problem in saying that something stinks. It’s not something that is in my interest to publish at this time but I honestly suspect foul play is lurking in a story behind this condition.

There were also several inaccuracies in the report. In fact one statement was tantamount to being a complete fabrication of facts relating to our re-submission. A lie? Yes, that’s the way I see it.

Having spoken to one of the council wards tonight whom I have come to trust, it seems we will have to go to Woollahra Council Chambers (DCC). At this stage I have lost all faith in the normal process, I do not trust the planning committee at Woollahra Council. I am just relieved to have a councilor who is trustworthy to talk to about matters in search of a solution.

Ray of hope: My architect may have a golden bullet that can be aimed at this report. I will know tomorrow if we have further evidence which would effectively slam dunk several matters. Fingers crossed.

I have no idea what council are doing. The Mayor and other senior persons in council have given me their support, but appear powerless to actually get the planners to do what they say they are going to do. Endless excuses, phone calls / emails not returned, it appears more and more that the planning department at Woollahra are a law unto themselves and even requests from the Mayor are not taken with any degree of seriousness or haste.

The more this drags on the more frustrating it gets, with no deadline, no commitment no end in sight.

So unfortunately I ended up emailing the Mayor, Geoff Rundle to highlight my frustration and desperation with council and my DA.

I was impressed. Not only did the Mayor respond personally within several hours, he followed up and responded as promised. It’s good to know that at the end of the chain there is someone who takes things seriously and doesn’t just blow hot air. He responded with dates and names and gave assurances that our case would be followed up.

Whilst calling the Mayor was a last resort, and not good use of his time in my opinion, he earned my respect.

There are some things you can do on the way. Certainly the more you log and the more you take note, the easier it is later on.

1. Make notes of all meetings.
2. Ask your architect to keep detailed notes.
3. Ask for times when the case officer anticipates receiving reports.
4. Get to know your case officer
5. Do not be afraid to ask questions and opinions
6. Call as early in the day possible to get hold of case officers
7. Get your case officers email. Ask direct questions and make sure you receive replies in writing.

Keep the Land and Environment court as a back up option for speeding up approval. It appears that Council prefer you not to go to Land and Environment court as it is expensive for them to do so. Whilst I have not been down this road I know many people who have.

Who is Victor Berk? IMO he is one of the most unprofessional people I have ever come across. With 35 years designing properties in Woollahra, Vaucluse, Dover Heights and Watsons Bay, it is rare that I have have met someone who on paper seems so accomplished, but in real life appears to me to be little more than a pompous bully with an immense superiority complex.

So I had the mis-pleasure of several phone calls with Professor Berk, who is unfortunately for myself and surrounding neighbours the architect for a nearby property. On record there have been ten registered complaints to Woollahra Council regarding his design. Not surprising for a proposed building that is in my opinion selfish, poorly thought out and inconsiderate to the surrounding properties. He had little interest in hearing my opinion - and dealt with my observations and perceived problems with blunt dismissal without validation or explanation. This appeared to me to be simply because he believes he knows better and does not feel obliged to explain further. I found his attitude arrogant beyond belief.

In my experience anyone who starts a conversation by reading their credentials is usually a person who derives a high degree of self-importance by doing so, or is insecure. On each of my calls to Victor Berk I endured his recap of his perceived importance and how he is also a Professor at the University of NSW. I do not understand why anyone believes that they have a right to respect - this is reticent of the class system. True professionals understand people, solve complex problems and are able to repeat their feats time and time again. I’ve found over the years that dealing with people’s problems and finding solutions is the mark of a true professional.Despite my best efforts to come to an understanding with Victor Berk I encountered nothing but rudeness, denial and arrogance.

For the record I have taken a good look at Victor Berk’s properties and have to say they are some of the ugliest buildings I have seen in the Vaucluse area.

If you ever want to use Victor Berk’s services he can be found here:
Design 23 Ltd
Randwick

Viktor Burke, Architect, Sydney Profile
Victor Burk, Architect, Sydney Contact
Victor Berke, Architect, Sydney Details

INTERLUDE: So the Woollahra council website is full of warm and fuzzy pics of the council in action. After nearly 8 months and 240 days of being given the royal runaround, misinformation, misleading statements and lousy service from council, I’m not feeling so loving towards these shots…

 
I can guarantee the person smiling does not work there. Apart from the obvious clue that she’s happy, I’ve waited there and so has my architect for hours on end and she isn’t anywhere to be seen.

This must be the shot which makes you think that many important problems are being solved. Hmm.

 
Don’t worry little girl, Woollahra council is here to serve you. Mum thinks it’s the most hilarious thing she’s seen all week.

These people haven’t lodged a DA with Woollahra Council.

OK Dave, you calculate the FSR, I’m going on holiday for 2 months.

It has been 12 months (almost to the day) since we (my partner and 2 young kids) bought our new house which lies under the ’shadow’ of Woollahra Council. Despite promises verbal and written we are no closer to having this DA approved

We had it refused (incorrectly) and were asked to resubmit the same plans and promised an expedited process of approval. It has still not happened.

Honesty, transparency and helpfulness should be the currency of any Council. After all don’t we pay their wages through our taxes and rates bills?

At this point in time I am planning to seek help from persons outside the planning department to help get to the bottom of this.

After 6 months of waiting on Woollahra Council we received the final letter. There was nothing in the world that we expected to see other than “DA Approved” after all our architect had met with council dozens of times and they never asked for a single thing to be amended. In fact the planner said on multiple occasions, “there’s no issues - you should get through fine.”

We were refused. Point blank.

My architect almost had a heart attack. We were stunned. HOW? WHY? We read through the reasons for refusal and were gobsmacked - this was all stuff council had said was ok? What was going on?

This is where this story takes a twist.

Upon asking the planner who had refused the our DA he told our architect that he had been told to judge our DA in conjunction with a DA for our next door neighbour - a property which has many problems including over 10 complaints from neighbours. He verbally told my architect that our refusal was something of a ‘mistake’, and apologized profusely. They knew that they had stuffed up. Of course a severe amount of backtracking occurred at this point from various parties in council.

The net effect of several meetings is that we were asked by Woollahra Council to reapply and resubmit our DA in EXACTLY the same format. I also received written email from the senior planner that he would seek to approve our DA and expedite the process. Of course excuses were offered, but if our DA was so wrong why would they ask us to resubmit the same plans unless they had failed to assess the DA properly?

The above alone shows that something is fundamentally wrong with the DA process at this council. I have my suspicions but moving forward one has to hope that despite an extended delay the corner will turn for us.

If you’re thinking about submitting development applications to council, on paper they are supposed to give you a response within 42 days (6 weeks). Now I happen to know Woollahra council have just about the worst record in Australia when it comes to beating that. Several people I know who have been through council before don’t even bother waiting, they go straight to the Land and Environment court to get what they need (an expensive option and it wasn’t for us).

From their Website:
In 2006, 73% of all applications were determined with a median of 65 days.  About 20% - the more complex developments - have a median determination time of around 180 days.

After they have advertised your property for the DA (so neighbours can complain if they need to) you get assigned a case officer. This person seems largely responsible for how well things get kicked off. They are supposed to write the initial report and recommendations. If it goes well here then you’ll probably get a good ride providing all your neighbours approve.

END OF JUNE 2007:
So our DA application got off to a good start: Our humble design was met with enthusiasm from our first case officer (I will find his name and insert here). Having had a meeting with our architect the officer said something along the lines of “I can’t see any major issues here - it looks pretty straight forward.” We were pretty relieved but that was what we had expected.

Things changed quickly as we discovered a hidden bombshell not soon after. Our case officer was going on holiday for 2 MONTHS in less than 14 days!  Not to worry because on questioning he said he had 10 reports to write before he left and was very positive he would get ours done before he went on holiday as it seemed fairly straight forward.

Of course he did not deliver, nothing was done, and our DA went into some weird limbo for weeks. Very very frustrating.

It raises the following questions about Woollahra Council:

1. Why appoint a case officer to new work he cannot finish?
2. Did this case officer deliberately mislead us into believing we were in very positive territory with our application? (I will explain this later).
3. Why did Woollahra council not have a plan to deal with staff going on vacation?

Anyway, this was just the start. Council were about to put on a show that would leave me lost for words. [ to be continued ]