Building Designer and Draftsman The Hills District

Out here the job starts with what is registered against the land. A covenant at Gables, an effluent disposal area at Kenthurst, a bushfire mapping layer along the Glenorie fringe. We read those first, sketch a scheme that fits inside them, then draw it up properly. The output is a site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections and the technical notes a builder sets out from, plus the lodgement paperwork behind it. One drawing set carries the development application and the construction certificate, and we chase the assessment ourselves.

For the work Hills owners actually book, second storeys over 1990s brickwork, alfresco roofs, machinery sheds, secondary dwellings on hectare blocks, an architect fee buys more than the job needs. We charge a fixed amount, draw to the same standard a certifier assesses, and know which schemes The Hills Shire will wave through and which ones draw a request for further information. Where a house is genuinely bespoke and someone wants a registered architect running the contract, hire one. Everything else moves faster and cheaper through a designer.

It is the formal request to council before you build or change the use of land. Around here that covers new houses on estate lots, upper floor additions, secondary dwellings, bigger sheds, pools, decks and most retaining work. Land at Kenthurst, Middle Dural and Maraylya usually adds a wastewater report, and blocks on the bushfire map add an assessment on top. The pack we lodge includes site plans, elevations, shadow diagrams, the engineer input and a written planning case. Complete lodgements get read once instead of bouncing back.

Assume 6 to 8 weeks for backyard scale work such as a deck, a carport, a crossover or a wall. Allow 10 to 14 weeks once a new home or a secondary dwelling is involved. Acreage at Glenorie, Annangrove and Maraylya can run past that when a bushfire referral or an on site wastewater review is triggered, and estate lots at Box Hill and Gables lose time if the design panel has not signed off first. The single biggest cause of delay is a lodgement missing a document, which is why we send a full pack and answer the officer directly.

Approval says you can build the scheme. The Construction Certificate says the drawings comply with the Building Code of Australia and the standards under it, and it has to be issued before anyone starts on site. Structure, waterproofing, fire separation and energy performance all get resolved at this stage. On a second storey over 1980s Castle Hill brickwork the structural set is the bulk of it. We prepare the CC documents and keep the engineer and the certifier moving together so nothing sits idle between approval and the first delivery.

Frequently it works. A shed and a secondary dwelling on the same Kenthurst block, or a pool with the retaining work that holds the yard up behind it, sit well in one lodgement, and one application costs less than two. We ask early what else is coming in the next couple of years so the site plan already allows for it. That matters on rural land where the wastewater area, the driveway and every structure compete for the same space, and on estate lots where the covenant fixes the facade and the driveway position.

On a hectare block at Dural or Maraylya the wastewater system decides where a secondary dwelling can go, so we check its capacity and its disposal area before drawing a floor plan. On a smaller lot the numbers that matter are site coverage, setbacks, privacy to the neighbour and how much landscaped area is left. Either way you receive a site plan, floor plan, elevations, sections and the lodgement documents for a complying development certificate or a full application. The set is dimensioned for a builder to price without ringing us.

Bathrooms rarely need an application, though we confirm that against your actual scope rather than assuming it. Most of the Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills ensuites we redraw sit inside the existing walls, so the drawing work is fixture setout, waterproofing extents, falls to the waste, tile setout and any structural or services change the new layout forces. Where a bathroom goes in upstairs as part of a second storey, the floor structure and the drainage run get drawn too. Your builder, plumber and waterproofer all work from one dimensioned sheet.

Leave the walls and the footprint alone and a kitchen usually needs nothing lodged. Remove a wall, shift the structure or push out the back and the answer changes. Half the brick and tile homes at Winston Hills, Cherrybrook and Baulkham Hills have a load bearing wall between the kitchen and the family room, so that beam has to be sized by an engineer and drawn. We prepare the floor plan, the joinery elevations and the services layout, and we confirm which approval path applies before a single cabinet is ordered.

Everything hinges on the lot. At Box Hill, Gables and The Ponds the developer design guideline lands on top of the council controls and normally has to clear the estate design panel before council will look at it, so facade materials, roof pitch, garage width and driveway position are settled early. On acreage the shed, the wastewater area and the driveway shape the house position. Your set covers the site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections and the DA or CDC documentation, drawn around the levels and orientation of your block.

Barriers, levels, excavation and drainage are what stall pool applications, not the shell. We document the finished water level, the fence and gate compliance, the backwash, and the distance from the pool to boundaries, footings and the house. On unsewered land at Kenthurst, Glenorie or Maraylya the shell also has to clear the effluent disposal area and its reserve, which we confirm before siting it. New pools, replacement pools and the paving and retaining around them all get drawn to the same detail.