The Fire and Life Safety Blog

Today’s Anniversary is not about Royal Commission reports or private bushfire shelters or BAL assessments. It’s about people. Those who experienced this day, 1 year ago. It’s hard to recall my family bunkered down in Big Pats Creek surrounded by the smoke and hosing down embers blowing towards us from the worst affected areas in St Andrews, Strathewen, Kinglake and the like. But for the wind change on the day I (and the residents of Narbethong and Marysville!) might have a different story too. A bit like Kevin and Leanne Beard’s story.

Image courtesy of Ballarat Courier

The short piece in yesterday’s (Ballarat) Courier article – “Black Saturday Anniversary – A time of reflection and mutual support” is a really positive article on the difficult journey of rebuilding ones life. Our thoughts and wishes today are with our friends who suffered and all the people like Kevin and Leanne.

Groan …. I can hear you thinking. Planning permits – they are the bane of developers, builders and facility managers lives. Every now and again someone says to me “Oh, we got a planning permit, I didn’t know we needed a building permit as well?” So let’s have a look at the difference in simple terms.

In simple terms in Victoria, Australia, a Planning Permit is about permission to use the land for certain activities with respect to their impact on the nature and enjoyment of the area by the community. It can also be permission to do development (i.e works). Maybe this is where the confusion occurs?

A Building Permit is an approval process to ensure that the approved building works meet community expectations for minimum standards for health, fire (and life) safety, amenity, and energy efficiency.

Importantly: they are definitely not the same thing; they are handled by two different groups of people, and are even administered under different legislation in Victoria.  (more…)