Approvals and documentation
Construction certificates
Development consent says you may build it. A construction certificate says you may start.
A construction certificate is the step between a development consent and work starting on site. It certifies that the detailed construction documentation is consistent with the development consent and complies with the Building Code of Australia, and it is issued by a certifier — council or private.
The misunderstanding that costs the most time here: a DA drawing set is not a CC drawing set. A DA set is drawn to answer a planning question — form, siting, amenity, impact. A CC set is drawn to be built from, and it has to satisfy a certifier that every condition of consent has been discharged.
Owners regularly reach this point assuming the drawings they already paid for will do. They won't, and the gap is usually discovered when the builder wants to start.
What the certifier needs
Broadly, the documentation has to show the building can be built to comply, and the consent's conditions have to be dealt with:
- Detailed design drawings — plans, elevations, sections, construction details, window and door schedules, finishes
- Structural engineering — design and certification
- Stormwater and drainage design, to the council's specification
- BASIX commitments shown on the drawings, and the certificate itself
- Fire safety schedule where the building type requires it
- Compliance with the conditions of consent — every pre-construction condition addressed, item by item
- Long service levy paid where the works exceed $25,000, and development contributions paid where the consent requires it before the certificate issues
The conditions are the part that stalls jobs. A consent can carry twenty or more, several of which have to be satisfied before the certificate can issue, and each may require someone else's document.
What we do
Read the consent, work through the conditions, and produce the construction set — either from our own DA drawings or from someone else's. We take on other designers' approved projects regularly; the drawings do not have to be ours.
Then we coordinate the consultant documents the certificate needs and hand the certifier a package rather than a partial submission.
Our fees show the CC set priced as an add-on to the approval documentation — from $6,800 + GST on a new dwelling, from $5,800 + GST on a secondary dwelling. Taking on a project approved elsewhere is scoped separately.
Two things worth knowing
A CDC doesn't need one. A complying development certificate covers both the planning approval and the construction approval. If your project went the complying development route, there is no separate construction certificate step.
Appoint the principal certifier before work starts. The certificate and the appointment are separate things and both have to be in place. It is a routine step and a routine thing to be caught out by.
Have a consent and need to start?
Send us the consent and the approved plans. We'll scope the CC set against the conditions.