Tomorrow is decision day

The council wants us to add dropped edge beam at the back of the house, then cutting away half of the backyard and put a 400 mm high retain wall smack in the middle of our yard. This is apparently to reduce the height of the ground so we cannot look over the side and back fence.


I would rather put a lattice extension over the fence. This would be cheaper, simpler, would not require to export soil and would as effective to maintain privacy.

Today I looked at what are my options to change these conditions. This is where we hit the bureaucracy wall. Giving my opinion and alternate proposal to the people taking a decision tomorrow is apparently not possible.

My options are:

1. Pulling out of tomorrow's DAU meeting, discuss my proposal and having that put forward for the next DAU meeting... which won't be until February next year.
2. Let the DAU assess my DA tomorrow. If it is approved, I can lodge a section 96 to modify the approved DA prior to build. This would trigger another neighbour notification period (14 days) plus an extra 4 weeks for the xmas break.
3. Let the DAU assess my DA tomorrow. If it is approved, start building with the dropped edge then later lodge a section 96 to modify the landscaping (making the dropped edge beam redundant).

The obvious choice is #3. It is for sure the least effective and more wasteful but for us it would be the cheapest option.

So tomorrow is decision day! We will soon know if our DA gets approved.