Landscape Plan as Part of Town Planning: Why they commonly cause you an issue

What most clients ‘assume’ and get wrong!

When you’re planning to build a new home you will need to send your plans to the council for approval, they will generally request a Landscape Plan as part of it.

Doing the right thing, you engage a designer to create a landscape plan that will be approved to be built.

So, where does the problem lie? What are we assuming? What could go so wrong?

How can I avoid making this messy mistake?
When you engage a designer to create a plan to be used in your Town Plan submission, create a plan that is also valuable for costing purposes when you need to obtain a landscape quotation?
Stating ‘timber deck’ as in the landscape plan above does not allow a cost to be calculated. Detailed descriptions such as: ‘Spotted Gum decking using 86 x 19mm boards’ allows a cost to be calculated. It is rather lazy to go to all that effort to create a design and not ask the client, “would you like spotted gum timber in 86mm wide boards?”

So, why do so many designers do it?
I am not here to cast judgement on that, but certainly, Landscape Plans tend to be created at a low price (perhaps you might see why now) and this may be appealing.
I have heard over the years people say, “oh, I just need to make the council happy and get my permit, we won’t do that design and will engage a designer later to create what we really want.” Be extremely wary!
I had a client last year, that when we wanted to extend the height of a simple paling fence on a new-build site, that the building surveyor turned around and said, “sorry, but the council said you have to amend the Town Plan for that, and it will take four months (which it did).”
There are so many horror stories I could share, but I hope the above is enough to make you place importance on getting a design right from the start. Do not rely on hearsay. Get reliable facts. Take the time to get your design right. This includes getting it fully detailed. I hope this information is of value in directing how you may select a designer for your new home planning stage.