Outsourcing town planning – A case study

We work with a lot of professional firms (architects, draftspeople, building designers, surveyors and engineers etc who outsource their town planning work to us. We love these clients as they generate regular work for us and we give them a great rate for their statement of environmental effects. The fact is that designing and drafting plans is what they do best and often the statement of environmental effects is a last minute report that they throw together to try and have the application lodged. The SoEE often lacks substance and quite often doesn’t use the correct planning controls.  

Case study – Outsourcing the statement of environmental effects

Background

We were contacted by a small building designer who was very busy due to the boom in the industry. The designer had been doing their own statement of environmental effects for a few years but as a result in the huge surge in traffic they couldn’t keep up with the demand. Our client still wanted to provide a quick service for a great cost but still provide a quality report that will stand up against Council town planners. 

Case Study

King Plans contacted us as they had taken on too much work and couldn’t keep up with the demand. They had a massive influx in clients and one of their biggest time consumers for their projects was the statement of environmental effects and the lodgement process with Council. They reached out to us to look at outsourcing their town planning to us.

We hadn’t worked with Kings Plans before so we organised a phone conversation with them and discussed what they needed from us for their town planning needs. The client expressed that they had a lot of workplace stress around having to complete their own statement of environmental effects and lodging with Council as this took up a big chunk of their time and it wasn’t a part of the process that they enjoyed or were confident in doing.

Initial Proposal

We proposed to King Plans to assist them with one job so that they could test how we worked and the quality of our reports. We gave them a great rate to allow them to trial us for their reports and they eagerly agreed.

The Project

The project was a statement of environmental effects for some minor alterations and additions to an existing dwelling. The project had some non compliances with the rear setback due to existing site constraints and the designer had minimised the impact on the rear neighbour. 

We produced a statement of environmental effects for the project that included a justification to the rear setback breach based on the merit of the proposal and achieved a rear setback more than half of what was required under the Council DCP!

Our client was ecstatic with our result as they had tried and failed for the same development previously!

Aftermath

After the positive approval resulting from our amazing statement we contact KingPlans and said that we were happy to assist with future projects and asked to send through their most regular types of developments and we could provide a flat rate so that they could pass this on to their client when they were quoting. Kings Plans sent through a list of their most common projects and we provided a very competitive flat rate for those types of development because we appreciate regular work from trusted client.

Conclusion

When looking for business 2 business connections for town planning, dont look for the best price or the brightest website, look for the firm that gets you the result for the price your clients can afford! We match our prices to your business and your clients! We love our regular clients and treat them as royalty. 

Maybe it is time you outsourced your statement of environmental effects to Outlook Planning and Development!

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Have a chat with one of our planners today!

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