Additional Window; Removal of Mouldings

We received another Building Variation from Carlisle to adhere with the estate's strict design guideline.  These changes are required to obtain a developer approval.

One of the variations is the addition of a highlight window on the stair void wall above the garage to break up the solid wall from the street view.  Hubby and I actually love this variation! It will make our home brighter.

As for the other variation.... I don't really like it but we have no choice.  We have to comply so we can get an approval.  The developer wants us to remove the mouldings on the balcony post as these do not fit in with the Australian contemporary style of the estate. The pictures below highlight the mouldings that they want us to remove.  It is so disappointing.  I really want to have a tradtional looking Hampton facade but with the removal of the mouldings, the character of the house is affected.  It seems to be a small change but to me it makes a lof of difference to the facade.  According to the design panel, these highlighted areas represent a period style feature and would have to be removed.

  

The balcony will look like the picture below after the mouldings have been removed. It looks so plain :-(

Building Variation 1 & 2

Engineering report was completed and as a result we received a building variation document from Carlisle.  

One of the variations is the provision of a long timber sleeper retaining wall, 200mm from left hand side boundary.  This is an engineering requirement.  Glad that we have a fixed site cost.  Otherwise, it will cost us a few grand.

Another building variation is the provision of a high balustrade on the left hand side of the balcony.  This is due to the overlooking requirement of the estate.  There is a restriction on our title which state that any habitable room within 3500mm from the boundary will need to be screened to avoid overlooking to our neighbour's block of land. 

The high balustrade was initially supposed to be an etched toughened obscure glass like in the picture below. Although it is nice and modern, it doesn't match the Hamptons look of our facade.

Carlisle gave us the option to change it to an aluminium louvre like the one in the picture below.  This balcony looks very much like the balcony of our facade and I think this matches the overall look of the Hampton facade that we are trying to achieve so we went for the louvre.

UPDATE (07/11/2018): The estate overrode this restriction and so it's back to the original design now... no more louvre screen. Yay!