Craigieburn is in Hume City Council, on the Hume Freeway north of the city. We work across Craigieburn every week and know Hume’s requirements: one registered building surveyor from permit to sign-off, a fixed fee quoted up front, and fast turnaround times.
The estates and the older streets
Most new work is in the estates west of the railway: Stockland’s Highlands, running north toward Mickleham and Mount Ridley, and Peet’s Aston off Craigieburn Road in the south-west, including the townhouse lots along Elevation Boulevard. Lots are compact and most come with a developer design guideline and a building envelope plan. Two things catch people out. The developer’s design approval is not a building permit. And on the small lots (the key threshold is under 300 square metres), a lot nominated for the Small Lot Housing Code on the plan of subdivision is assessed against the Code instead of the Part 5 siting provisions of the Building Regulations 2018: a compliant design needs no planning permit and nothing goes to council for report and consent, while a design that misses a Code standard needs a planning permit from Hume before the building permit can issue. We check the envelope, the code and the siting before the permit is issued.
East of the line, around Craigieburn Road and the station, the housing is brick veneer from the 1970s to the 1990s on blocks big enough to do something with. That is where the knock-down rebuilds and dual occupancies happen: demolition permit, Section 29A consent from Hume, a planning permit if two dwellings are going on, then the building permit for the new home. We run the whole sequence.
Basalt and clay
Craigieburn is on the volcanic plain: reactive clay over basalt, with the rock at a depth that varies lot to lot. Reactive clay is common here, so the soil report sets the class, and the slab and footings are designed to it, not to a generic detail. Shallow basalt turns up in footing trenches, stormwater runs and shed slab excavations. We check the soil report and engineering before the permit goes out, then inspect the steel before the pour, the one stage nobody can fix afterwards.
What we get asked for in Craigieburn
New homes for volume builders. Verandahs, pergolas, decks and carports on homes a few years old, where the building envelope and rear setback decide whether the job is exempt. Retaining walls on the cut-and-fill lots in Highlands and Aston, where a wall a metre or more high, or one holding up a neighbour’s land or part of other building work, needs a permit and engineering (see our guide on when a retaining wall needs a permit). Garages and larger sheds on the bigger blocks east of the line and the rural-residential lots toward Mickleham. Extensions on the older brick homes. And fit-outs for tenants around Craigieburn Central.
Nearby
We cover the whole corridor around Craigieburn: Mickleham and the Merrifield estate, Roxburgh Park, Greenvale, Kalkallo, Donnybrook, Wollert over the Whittlesea boundary, and Sunbury and Wallan further out. Our northern Melbourne page has the full list.