Progress at last!

Good news! The Council has granted our resource consent.

After getting partway through the consultation process with local Māori, we found out that the Council were wrong about our section being of cultural significance.

After completing some research on Google, we found the Council's District Plan, which listed Puketirotiro Peak as being of cultural significance. Puketirotiro peak is a nearby lookout point. The important words on this plan are that the property of cultural significance is "identified by a trig station." Our surveyor took a look around, and found the trig station, which is located at 157 Maungaraki Road. Our property is at 251 Maungaraki Road. The council then told us that we no longer needed to consult with Māori. Phew! One less thing to do.

Now all we need to do is wait until this weather improves for a decent period of time so that the earth dries out and the earthworks can begin. We thought that might be in a couple of weeks or so, but we've been told that, in reality, it's more likely to be late November. Yikes! Ah well, another month, another delay to the move-in date. We're now looking at moving in to the house in late April 2011.

The same day that the Council granted our resource consent, we received our working drawings, yippee!! All in all they look fantastic! There are just a few minor errors, which comes with the territory. But thankfully we asked to see the working drawings before they were lodged with the Council with our application for building consent, so those things are getting fixed up as we speak. We should be able to lodge our building consent application within the next week or so.

Next on the agenda is meeting with the electrician to decide lighting, power outlets, etc. That's the last major thing we need to do before the build begins. Exciting stuff!!

On a completely different note, Andrew and I have been nominated for an award in the New Zealand Open Source Awards for being Open Source Advocates in our role of Co-Directors of linux.conf.au 2010, which was held in Wellington earlier this year.

It's quite touching to have the hard work we put in organising linux.conf.au 2010 recognised by someone out there as being so significant that they actually took the time and energy to nominate us. Little old us! Ah, shucks