We’ve been MIA on here for the past 16 months (!) because to be honest, we haven’t had anything to write about. People have been asking us about our Tassie project and there’s been nothing exciting to report for over 12 months. We’ve just been working and squirrelling away money while jumping through seemingly endless hurdles regarding our development application. We are pleased to announce that we finally have something to write about – we have just received our development approval! This is a huge relief for us as the right to build a dwelling on our property was discretionary and we knew in purchasing the land that there was the risk of not being able to build on it. With our development approved, our strawbale house project can proceed full steam ahead. I’ll provide a summary below of our journey to date for those interested in the details, as well as our plans for the property.
Our property settled in September 2021, at which point we engaged architect Andrew Kerr from AKA architects in Hobart. We submitted our development application to Council in February 2022. The reason it took so long to get approved is that whilst our property is zoned residential, there is an attenuation code overlay due to a nearby quarry that triggers a discretionary application rather than the automatic right to build a dwelling. Despite the fact that the quarry is no longer active and that our property is surrounded by existing houses, Mineral Resources pushed back against our application. Council refused our application unless we could prove that the blasting from the quarry – which is full of water because it is disused – would not damage our structures. We finally managed to find an engineer to assess our design against the blasting parameters and confirm that the blasting would have to be ten times stronger than legally allowed to cause any damage to our property. All this back and forth between Council, Mineral Resources, EPA, and getting multiple reports from experts took 10 months in total, and many thousands of dollars. It could have been longer or denied entirely, so we’re relieved to finally have our DA so we can start making real plans for the future.
So, what’s the plan? We’ve got 6.5 acres on a north-facing sloping site in Deloraine, Tasmania, where we’re going to build our forever home and a permaculture-inspired paradise. We’re building a strawbale house for ourselves, and (hopefully – budget permitting) at the same time a smaller strawbale cottage for guests – because we’re expecting you all to be coming to visit us! We’re working towards a homesteading lifestyle – we’re going to be living off the land and just generally living life in the slow lane. We’ll plant an orchard and a big veggie patch, and eventually we’ll get a few milking goats and of course chickens. We’ve already planted 240 trees for our windbreak, and we’ll plant a small forest as well. We have some long term plans like building a pottery/arts studio and possibly adding another house to eventually have a few households sharing the property.
We’re excited to kick off 2023 and get stuck into this project. First step will be working with our architect to get construction drawings done, and in the meantime we’ll be organising excavations and get a shed built. We’re staying in Melbourne a little while longer – realistically another 12-18 months while we work and save money in the final push towards making this project a reality. We’ll be setting up a Facebook page for the project where we’ll be inviting friends and family to come help us with various stages of the build and keeping everyone updated with progress. We can’t wait to share this journey with you all, and we can’t wait to have you come visit!
