Diving into the planning process can be both exhilarating and challenging. The process of development will have you being faced with concepts such as feasibility, site due diligence, safety and environmental impacts, and can very quickly leave you feeling overwhelmed and unsure of exactly where to begin.
Additionally, the planning process can be stressful, time consuming, confusing, and quite a costly undertaking, if not well managed. This is often where a town planning professional can assist with their experience and expertise to manage a project, in order to guide the process in the most effective way. Working with a town planning consultant is your best asset toward gaining a successful planning approval through council.
So, aside from helping to ensure a project is well managed from inception to construction, what are some other benefits for hiring a town planner?
1. The knowledge - Compliance & Assessment
The various applications and processes required to manage your goals and ideas into fruition are broad. Obtaining planning permissions requires various assessments across a broad range of compliance and council planning schemes.
This is often a time-consuming process that involves assessing your goals and managing that with the local requirements. There is much room for error here and not having the knowledge of what is required, meeting compliance restrictions and completing the correct assessments, could lead to costly misfortune. Mistakes that may lead to costly site redesigns, reconfigurations or complete overhauls can be avoided with the assistance of a planning professional.
2. Time, Energy, Money - Contractors in the Field
Aside from the applicable know-how, your consultant often has contact with relevant experts in various fields that will be required throughout your planning process. Surveyors, Architects, Engineers, and various other Assessors - Your planner can engage the best professionals to ensure your project maintains momentum.
These experts, working along side your town planner, can help to ensure that the risk of costly mishaps, like that of re-submissions or failed applications, are drastically reduced. This also saves you from wasted time, energy and money; with the need to micromanage this process dramatically reduced.
3. Approval Strategies - Meeting Council Requirements
Hiring a town planner to manage your project removes your need to ensure that all relevant health, safety, local laws, and environmental regulations are understood, implemented and compliant.
These laws and guidelines are specified by NSW Government and local councils. When design elements conflict, these laws and guidelines often require experience and a creative approach to be resolved. Your town planner will draw from their experience and knowledge to provide the best strategic argument to ensure you are in the best position to achieve approval.
This process can be quite time consuming and will include liaison with council before, during and after the lodgement process, responding to additional information requests, seeking post-approved negotiated outcomes and, at times, preparing court appeal documentation.
4. Comprehensive Analysis - Layman's Terms
The language and jargon used throughout this process can be really confusing. Tackling an application alone can mean countless hours researching terminology and forming understanding of the processes involved, to ensure that there are no stages missed or overlooked.
Your planner is your most valuable asset for understanding the "WHY" and "WHAT" of your assessment. From start to submission, they can ensure that you understand the terms, what each process looks like, why they are required, and what will be done to ensure they're successfully completed. You can move through each stage with a refreshed level of understanding and assurance, without the stress of going it alone.
5. Successful Application Outcome - Mitigating Risks
This is your planners line of work, they know every aspect, inside and out. It's their job to be in the know, and a really good planner with absolutely LOVE it!
This also means that they know every possible set-back, restriction, obstacle and potential risk that may factor into your successful outcomes. Which then means that they know how to mitigate that risk or work with it & you to have those risks become manageable and not negatively impact your project.
Town planners take a more systematic approach to the risks that others simply try to avoid. Manging these setbacks and making manageable adjustments along the way, can be exactly what steers your application towards success.
Application Success
So, to wrap things up.
Hiring a professional Town Planning Consultant is your best asset in combatting the difficult, confusing and at times restricting application process. You remove the confusion, by having a consultant as your knowledge base, someone familiar with local laws, schemes and regulations, tasked in handling such complexities.
Your town planner should reassure you, explain the process, help you feel comfortable with your project and remove confusion by providing you with a clear strategy towards success. They should align you with contractors and experts, navigate the complexities of planning issues and guide you along throughout all aspect of your project.
If you are looking for a professional Town Planning Consultant to help manage your project, then look no further than Plan BE Planning Consultancy.
Plan BE operates within Wagga Wagga, Braidwood, Bungendore, Queanbeyan, and Surrounding Districts. We operate with over 15 year experience in planning and working with local councils in various areas of development and planning compliance.
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