Council Certification
Form 15 Certification
This certification has become prevalent in all construction and is almost always required by a building certifier before issuing a certificate of classification.
Form 15 certificates are issued after checks on design drawings to ensure they comply with the height restrictions of local councils, 9.5m above Original Ground Level in Brisbane and 8.5m in Redlands. The original ground level is determined from the 2002 contours in Brisbane.
The process requires obtaining the contour information from the relevant council and digitising this information into a CAD file. The design detail is then overlaid in this file and compared to the ground level at the relevant points. A drawing is then prepared detailing the maximum permissible height the building can achieve, if the design complies with this requirement a Form 15 certificate is issued.
Form 16 Certification
Form 16 certification is done after construction to certify that it is compliant with council regulations or conditions. Setout and sitting Certificates are done by checking the location of the relevant structure to the boundaries and comparing those to the offsets from the boundaries that have been approved, if compliant a Form 16 certificate is issued, if not a sketch is prepared with details of the non-compliance.
A common error is for builders or homeowners to get this done after construction has been completed, it is strongly recommended that new work is set out by a registered surveyor to avoid difficulties afterwards. The cost of the setout work allows for a Form 16 and is not that much more than getting it done after the building is finished.
