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March 17, 2011 at 8:23 am #1055915Up::0
That’s fabulous that you have a proper dance floor. Really important.
Hope your application sails through. Wishing you all the best.
March 17, 2011 at 10:52 am #1055916Up::0I hear you about the colors of the curtains, but we may use the room for a movie session during school holidays, I found some bead curtains as well, that we could put in front of the velvet ones and liven it up. There are also disco lights and ball as well. The dark colors should bring up the lighting? They are not too pricey as well and there is one thing I draw the line at and that is sewing, as I can’t sew straight! lol
March 20, 2011 at 10:49 pm #1055917Up::0Last Thursday the planning officer at the council said he was reviewing our application and a letter would be sent out that day or the following to us. So I wait, thinking about it all weekend….no letter. I ring today, just in case they sent it to our planning consultant who often gets stuck in VCAT for days on end. And no……they have not sent a letter and the planner is still reviewing the application. They said they will write a letter if needed.
There is no way we will make our timelines, I have wasted more of our hard earned money on nothing. This entire process is just ridiculous and does not benefit any business, it holds them up from being able to operate. And there doesn’t appear to be anything I can do about it.
March 21, 2011 at 2:39 am #1055918Up::0What a disappointment !! I’ve been following your story and was looking forward to hearing how the opening day went.
Is there anyone else at the Council you can talk to? Not to complain (because that will only get your paperwork put to the bottom of the pile) but to explain the impact the wait is having? Or your local member of parliament? they like to be seen to be helping small business.
Good luck, and stay positive
Wendy
March 22, 2011 at 2:51 am #1055919Up::0So council have sent us a letter, needing a range of things, most fairly simple, apart from a traffic engineers report on car parking demands. This will cost about $4000, delay us by another 3 weeks and we are then out of time. A local Volkswagon dealership has just opened up the street, I tried to contact them to see which traffic engineer they used, but I am a nobody and I doubt they will return my call.
what do I do now? Any cheap traffic engineers in Melbourne that anyone knows of? This really is difficult.
March 22, 2011 at 3:32 am #1055920Up::0Ok, now I am really angry, the new Volkswagon dealership 20 doors down, they didn’t need a traffic engineers report as they did one in 1978, and when they amended their planning application Council thought that was sufficient! Really the little guys are screwed in this country!
March 22, 2011 at 4:47 am #1055921Up::01978 is a long time ago, I would have thought traffic would have changed dramtically since then. Is it a case of who you know?
March 22, 2011 at 5:48 am #1055922Up::0Must be, I mean I am a business that currently works from home, a nobody in that murky land on no-where in business terms, but Volkswagon, how could you compare.
March 22, 2011 at 6:20 am #1055923Up::0Jazzah – hang in there. Don’t worry about nor focus on the big guys. Focus on you.
What you need to do is find out how to relate to the person that will help get things through. If you show anger you are liable to get put to the bottom of the pile, especially if they have had a lot of people disgruntled come through and they feel it’s no fault of their own but a lack of staff and resources. They need to be able to tick the boxes and show all is in order.
Find the person and calmly ask them, ‘I’m sorry but this is all new to me and I need the right information as quickly as possible so my application can be approved. Do you have a recommendation as to who is best to get the parking report from? Can you advise someone to help me get the best information to fulfill the application quickly because I really don’t know how to get this help and I have financial obligations with deadlines?’ etc.
Get the person to be on your side by asking for their help.
It’s so hard for you I know. But many times, the pencil pusher’s hands are tied also, but if they can help they will.
A wise female politician advised this recently. If you can work with the system you will get things through quicker. And that means the person on the other side must be able to tick the boxes.
March 22, 2011 at 6:41 am #1055924Up::0KarenC, post: 69569 wrote:What you need to do is find out how to relate to the person that will help get things through. If you show anger you are liable to get put to the bottom of the pile, especially if they have had a lot of people disgruntled come through and they feel it’s no fault of their own but a lack of staff and resources. They need to be able to tick the boxes and show all is in order.Find the person and calmly ask them,
Hi Karen,I have already held my breath, 3 calls to the council, one to the planner allocated to us and they don’t provide any lists of traffic engineers. Our planning consultant said they have no guidelines on when to impose a traffic report, they did not ask for one with the previous application and we had less car parking at that site.
I have emailed the 7 traffic engineers I could locate in Melbourne all of our documents and asked for a quote and timelines.
I’m just so stuck, our lease is conditional on obtaining a permit til the 1st may. We have to make a decision by then whether to withdrawal or not. We wont know by that date, we will be lucky if advertising is completed. So am I wasting money for the traffic engineers report knowing that we can’t make that timeline?
My husband says maybe we trade without the permit, like everyone else. I have tried really hard to do the right thing, why do they make it so darn hard though?
March 22, 2011 at 7:14 am #1055925Up::0So sorry to hear it’s so hard for you – we went through a dreadful time ourselves with business planning and permits a few years ago and sadly lost a lot of money also. So I do understand how bad and frustrated you feel. I just was hoping things might have improved over the years.
Do you know who your local council member is? Can you go and have a chat with them? They might be able to find out if it’s going to be yes or no and help you know whether you can take the lease or not. Just a thought.
March 22, 2011 at 8:40 am #1055926AnonymousGuest- Total posts: 11,464
Up::0Hi Jazzah,
Quote:I’m just so stuck, our lease is conditional on obtaining a permit til the 1st may. Id be looking to see if you could get an extension, or leniency on the lease. provide them with proof of delays from the council, but of course still suggest you will try to have everything by the 1st may.to make you feel slightly better, I was thinking of giving you a joke invoice to write up to the council, but decided against it, in-case of somebody took as advice or legal, which it would not have been.
March 24, 2011 at 9:23 pm #1055927Up::0Update…Traffic engineers will finish report on Sunday, there goes $3200! We have sent in the other information to the council already. I spoke to the manager of teh council expressing some concerns about the response we received. He advised they would start preparing the advertising straight away to save time, rather than wait til everything is further reviewed.
My main issue was that there are no guidelines as to when a traffic engineers report was required, we would have provided one from the onset if we knew, as time is critical. Also that it was unfair that we were doing the right thing by trying to obtain permits when a competitor has been operating without permits this whole time, earning an income, while we haven’t!
The manager rang me as I advised the ceo’s assistant I would be asking questions to the major at a public question forum tomorrow!
I don’t know if it will help, but it was worth raising the issues I think.
So we are now waiting for teh report and then a response again.
Cheers
JazzahApril 2, 2011 at 9:41 am #1055928Up::0WE are at advertising!! Traffic engineers report is completed and submitted (Council have passed it onto their engineering dept, but said they rarely have issues, I hope they are right!) So people can object til the 12th of April, then they allow a few days, is it possible we will have this permit before Easter??
I’m actually really scared now, our funds have depleted so much with the various council requirements, having already spent ($7500) I am wondering if we can do it now! Family help is proving to be unreliable and my partner has injured his knee an dis on crutches possibly needing a reconstruction!
I mean I can paint the walls and possibly do the floors, but I can’t build a wall? How expensive is a wall anyway? (I’m waiting on two quotes to come through) I have most of the dressing items for the rooms, apart from a rug, table and sofa.
I never realized how much goes into starting a retail business. Out internet business grew from one box of items, we now stock over $50,000 worth at any one time, but that has been a gradual process, not big chunks like this.
Have others had the same concerns when they started? How did they cope/manage? I am not sitting here saying, well things don’t have to be perfect, the secondhand kitchen will do til we can replace it, maybe a year or two, but it will get us open and earning!!
Cheers Jazzah
Volunteers to build a wall or two are welcome!
April 2, 2011 at 11:00 pm #1055929 -
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