Alternative options for water management and preventing erosion on driveways

[Karhys]

Hi everyone! This is my first post here, and I hope it's in the right place and everything. If not, feel free to sort me out.

My friend and I are looking at rural properties with the intent to move and start our own... well, not farm exactly, but place to grow our own food, keep chooks, care for horses, maybe have some alpacas, that sort of thing. We're looking for a more sustainable way of living, basically.

We've found a particular property that we really like, but there's an issue related to the driveway. The current owners have put in a driveway up to the (intended) house site, which has compacted road base on it. The driveway goes up a hillside, and has gradients ranging from 7% to 13%.
Apparently Sydney Catchment Authority have overriden the local council's rules regarding driveways, and have stated that for any gradient over 10% on this property, the driveway needs to be double sealed, and that the whole driveway needs table drains and mitre drains with bitumen lining and jute matting and level spreaders and what have you.
A local councilor has advised the current owners to lodge a section 96 (modification of development consent) because they feel it is "ridiculous". But currently, this is what stands on the property.

We don't want to seal the driveway or put in any of that stuff because aside from the outrageous cost, we feel it will be detrimental to the property. We're really interesting in the ideas of permaculture and sustainable living, and we believe that the erosion issues they're concerned about could be much better handled with something more natural, like the use of swales, and using vetiver along the sides of the driveways, and things like that. We'd much rather do something natural and conducive to managing the water effectively than just pave the road and put a bunch of drains in that run the water straight off the property where we can't use it.

So we'd really like to lodge the section 96, and submit some sort of alternate proposal to show how we can effectively manage the water on the hill.

Thing is, we're really new to permaculture in general, and so we don't know a lot about this sort of thing. We have plenty of ideas from what we've read on the internet, and we're still trying to research as much as we can. But I'm really having trouble finding out information this specific.

So I was wondering, does anyone have any advice, or any ideas, or know anyone we could talk to who'd know better about this?

We were thinking that if we could get someone who knows permaculture better than us to come and look at the place, that perhaps they could give us a detailed report or something that we could lodge with our section 96. Again, I don't really know whether that's feasible (it's not just permaculture, but all the legalities involved with buying a property that are all new to me!) but it's where I'm starting with my ideas.

I'd really love anyone's feedback and advice regarding this issue. We love the property as it is, and we'd really love to build at the current house site as it's gorgeous. But we just don't want to bitumen that driveway, and we can't afford it even if we wanted to. ;P

I don't know if it helps, but here's a picture of the property, with the driveway - it's a little hard to see but the driveway is the line that goes up the across the three 'bumps' of hills:
http://www.crysania.com/cassiel/temp/property-road.jpg

Thanks so much in advance!

[eco4560]

For a start Echodharmark is our resident planning guru and I'm sure he'll be along soon to give you some advice about how to interface with council. Secondly, this would be a great situation to get someone on site to look at what is happening and come up with some suggestions. If you take a look around the Worldwide Permaculture Network section up the top, you should be able to find someone who can do that for you.

Using the road to act as a water management solution, rather than being a water management problem is very definitely achievable.

[Karhys]

Hi eco4560! Thanks so much for your reply. I have seen some of Mark's post while browsing around the forum looking for information, and they've all been incredibly helpful! I hope he'll have the time to pop in here and share his wisdom.

Thank you also for mentioning the WPN! I've had a look and there are several people in the area of the property, so hopefully I'll be able to get someone to come out and look at it! (It's in NSW, near the Tarago area south of Goulburn, fwiw.)

And finally, thank you for saying that you think our ideas are achievable! It's good to hear that from someone with more idea of what we're considering than us! We've both had a lot of naysayers around us, mainly family and friends who don't understand what we're trying to do (because it's not something they could ever envision wanting for themselves) and they keep seeing all the things that could go wrong, and it gets wearying after awhile constantly being told that our dream isn't possible. We like to look at possibilities for what could work, not all the things that might fail.

[ecodharmamark]

G'day Karhys

Welcome to the PRI Forum.

So, let me get this straight. The property currently has a 'driveway' (as per the photo) that does not have development consent, and in order to get development consent the driveway has to be modified to comply with SCA regulations?

Thanks, Markos.

[eco4560]

Hi Markos.

(I told you he'd be along soon - can't resist a good town planning challenge and we love him for it.)

[Karhys]

Hi Markos!

Thanks for popping into the thread!

As I understand it, the "driveway" by itself, as it is, is fine. The regulations will only apply if the house is built at the current proposed house site, which is at the top of the hill, reached by the driveway. Apparently if we were to build the house down at the bottom of the hill, these SCA regulations would not apply. It is only if we wish to build the house at the top of the hill, at the other end of the driveway, that we need to make the driveway comply with the SCA regulations.
However, we really would like to build our house at the proposed house site. (It has a fantastic view.)

These are the facts as I understand them, as they've been explained to me by both the real estate agent and an engineer at the local council.

[sweetpea]

Not sure how it works where you are, but it can cost a ton of money to try to submit ideas/plans to get around current building codes/fire truck access etc. Every time we try to submit an alternative plan it costs a lot of money, a council needs to hear it, they almost always reject it, it's money down the drain. Sometimes people even have to hire lawyers to get around these regulations. sometimes neighbors have a fit because they tried to get around it and couldn't, and neighbors can come to these hearings and put in their two cents.

The easiest way to do this? Build a small house down on the lower part, get the permits. When it's done and everyone goes away, build a small cottage where you want it, hide it with trees and shrubs.

[ecodharmamark]

G'day again, Karhys

Considering that you wish to construct a house at the 'top of the hill', at the 'proposed site', and that this will still require you to meet SCA regulations, if you could now provide me (via a private message or my email in order to retain confidentiality) with all of the pre-purchase documentation that you have, I will have a look at it for you and see what I can come up with.

Cheerio, Markos.

[sweetpea]

And for what it's worth, the driveway is the least of your worries when it comes to getting the authorities to agree to what you want. There's the right kind of hillside with the right kind of subsurface rock that can support a house so it won't slide or be sitting in a waterlogged location in the winter (for us it's soils engineers), there's septic, well water minimums (be sure you can get water, not just people saying, "Oh, yeah, there's lots of water in this area." If you plant to collect water from the roof make sure it doesn't have composition shingles, that water isn't safe for vegetables or to drink. There's power and right of ways of the power company, it's illegal to use grey water so don't even mention that. If any of your neighbors can see a house up on the high part of your property, they might have the right to say they don't want to look at it and they were there first, be sure it's not too close to the property line, be sure you get the property surveyed so you know the property line is correct and you don't accidentally build 2 meters over it onto the neighbors. It's a real commitment to develop land, and a lot of people love the challenge, but prepare yourself for it