Local regulations & Setbacks

I was contacted by the Masterton sales office today regarding our plans and CDC.
The sales office contacted the building inspector/certifier who will be issuing the CDC with a copy of our recently drawn plans.

It turns out that our front setback has to be 10m minimum and the Garage cannot be in line with the rest of the front building line. The garage needs to be pushed back by 1m. This sucks as I will lose a bit of space in the Garage and also our front portico. Kind of defeats the purpose of extending the garage out in the first place.
The sales office recommended we push the rear RHS of the garage back by 1m aswell.
This will help with the extra space but that area is mainly for rear access so it isnt greatly beneficial.
Also, I look around where we live and none of the other houses have had to do this.
Theres one place about 40m from me and the garage sits in front of the house by around 3m!

Also, because the house has been pushed back, we are now too close to the rear boundary which has a setback of 12m!!
In order to solve this, the sales office recommended I bring the rear wall of the home theatre in by 800mm. This is possible as the home theatre is quite large and should still fit our couch set in their ok.

Thankfully my block isnt any smaller as it would have probably caused a lot more problems with this design.

Bloody council and their stupid regulations. I cant beleive I pay them well with my hard earned money just so they can tell me what I can and cannot do on my own property. (end rant) :)

First Drawn Plans Received

Finally got our plans today. They are mostly good with only a few things left out which I will get on to straight away.
Its good to finally see our idea on paper at least.

Plans can be viewed here - http://photos.imageevent.com/kadepunk/personal/FINAL%20PLANS%201ST%20DRAFT%20EDITED.pdf

In the meantime....

Hi all.

Not a lot to report lately. Its been all quiet on the southern front :)

Have been in communication with the sales office in Batemans Bay and apparently the plans are just going into drafting (approx. 3 weeks after the plan prep fee was paid.)

I have clearly specified all the changes we require to the plans so fingers crossed, they will have it all sorted and we receive these changes included in the first draft. However, after researching other peoples experiences, I think not. But heres hoping.

We had the contour survey done about 1 week ago now. The guy doing it was a nice bloke. Traveled all the way down south to us from Nowra (around 2.5-3 hrs). He told me to expect the peg-out within the next week or two. Will be good to finally see Masterton stick something in the ground.

Also, our Basix checklist with external colours has been completed, along with the 149 planning certificate for council. So thats 2 small steps forward on councils long, steep and windy paper highway.