Farmers to get cheaper sheds
THE agriculture industry is expected to save thousands of dollars a month thanks to a major change to building permits for farm shed builds.
Following a motion passed by South Gippsland Shire Council at its December 2018 council meeting, farmers will now be allowed to cut back on permit requirements by applying for a specific farm shed building exemption.
The local agriculture industry will save about $20,000 monthly according to calculations by council, which approves about 98 farm shed applications annually.
Under the new changes, a farmer building a “Class 10 building” on farm land can pay the reduced fee of $283.40 to assess an application for an exemption.
According to a report by council officers to the council, the current cost for building permits for farming sheds is about $2000 for private building surveyors to inspect and approve these relatively low risk structures.
The report said in addition, there were considerable delays for farmers trying to gain surveyor’s approval because of the overwhelmed resources in the private sector.
The proposed process, undertaken by council’s building team, would reduce the timeframe to 10 business days.
Councillor and Toora farmer Ray Argento said sometimes the cost involved in the permit sometimes exceeded the cost for building a farm shed.
“I recently constructed a shed and to get a shed application coupled with the cost of surveyors turned it into a costly project,” he said.
“I’ve spoke to a few local builders who are looking forward to the streamlining of the process because they see it as growth in their business. It may also encourage other builders to construct farm sheds.
“The application fee will be for an exemption from the regular permit process for construction of a building.”
Simpler process: South Gippsland Shire Councillor Ray Argento found the experience of building a shed to be costly.
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Posted by brad on Jan 3 2019. Filed under News, Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
