Doing due diligence

Buying a piece of land can be a very scary proposition! In our case the piece of land we were looking at is some 1610 square metres but only about 28% of that is the building platform, the rest is native bush.

As you can see it has some great views which is why we fell in love with it straightaway.

What you cannot see is the shape of the building plot which we were soon to learn gets somewhat reduced by the 2.2 metre Council berm then the 4.5 m setback. Once that is gone it got hard to imagine what could be done. Oh did I mention covenants ? There were a few of those covering single storey, limited fencing, NO CATS (you'd love it here Gareth) and fitting in with the natural surroundings.

So it was off to a local architect to see what he thought could be put on the remaining part of the section....bit of a necessary evil this, especially if you know at the outset you want a passive house and there is only one local Company who can provide that design!  Anyway a week later and $1500 poorer the architect came up with something that met our requirements.

google Maps

You will see from the map that our planned location is in the vicinity of the Waikanae River so a major due diligence concern was the flooding risk. Sessions with the local Council and the Regional Council, backed up by copious reports from the latter about the risks allayed our fears, and in discussing this with eHaus they pointed out that Passive houses, being tightly sealed, have a defense against flooding that was proven during the recent Whanganaui flooding.

So then it was reading all those long legal agrrments that come with a land transfer...and finding some money for a deposit...more about that another time.