Hey geeks, I am wondering if anyone has experience with dealing with councils on matters like this. I have obtained a building consent and got authorisation to connect to sewerage, water and stormwater services. On this picture below, the public sewer lateral is the part going from the underground main to the property boundary:
It is owned and maintained by the council according to their bylaw.
Now, the hitch is that my section has never had dwellings on it before, and, although there are service mains along the boundary, there are no laterals. They need to be built. When I approached the council about building them, they told me to hire a contractor and build them at my own cost. Their contractor (Downer) will only then inspect the completed work.
Digging through their policies I found a Policy on Development Contributions which stipulates that the council shall calculate what the owner's contribution is and bill him. When I pointed the council manager to that policy he basically denied that it applies and confirmed that I have to simply cover all the costs, even for the public laterals which I will not own.
Can anyone please share their experience with this stuff? Just aiming to do as much research as possible before, possibly, resorting to a legal action.