Restumping in Longwarry, Bunyip and Garfield

Where the boundary is

Longwarry is near the western edge of Baw Baw Shire. Bunyip and Garfield, the next two stops along the Gippsland line toward Melbourne, are in Cardinia Shire. V/Line trains through these towns run every 40 minutes every day. All three are railway-era towns that grew along the line, with older weatherboards and a scatter of newer housing, and much of the older stock sits on stumps.

For a restump, the boundary matters once, at the council layer. Everything that comes from the state is identical in all three: the Building Act, the Building and Plumbing Commission's registration rule, the building permit from a private surveyor, the contract and insurance thresholds. What changes is which council issues the asset protection permit and what it costs.

The housing and the ground

Railway cottages and post-war weatherboards in the towns, farmhouses on the flats and the hills either side. Longwarry sits on low ground west of Drouin; Bunyip and Garfield sit on the highway and railway between flats and hills. This site does not have verified flood history for the Tarago and Bunyip rivers at these towns, so it makes no claim about them; the Cardinia Planning Scheme and council's property information are the places to check for a particular address. What can be said is the same as the rest of West Gippsland: a metre of rain a year, subfloors that stay damp through winter, timber stumps that rot at the ground line, and a district deemed termite prone on the Baw Baw side. The work is reblocking in concrete or steel, with drainage built in.

What is different about a Cardinia job

• The asset protection permit comes from Cardinia under its own local law, at its own fee, and the quote should say who lodges it.
• The overlays are in the Cardinia Planning Scheme rather than Baw Baw's, so a heritage, flood or bushfire question goes to Cardinia's planning department and VicPlan shows Cardinia's layers.
• The termite designation on the property information certificate comes from Cardinia, and this site has only verified Baw Baw's whole-of-shire designation. Concrete or steel stumps with ant caps are the sensible default either side.
• Everything else is the same, because it is state law: the permit, the surveyor, the registration, the contract, the insurance.

A Longwarry job

Baw Baw Shire's rules, exactly as on the permits page: a private surveyor's building permit, a registered builder, the council asset protection permit at $305.40, report and consent if the land is flood-prone, and a planning check only if an overlay applies. Longwarry is not among the heritage precincts listed in the shire's exemptions plan.