Creativity and design thinking saves time and money on connected major land development projects

If there is one thing that we pride ourselves on at Inertia, it is thinking through a problem to find the best possible solution, and on our latest projects for Heran Building Group (HBG) we turned dirt into gold and had outstanding DA and OPW approval success.

Working across two sub-division projects, 102 titles @ Hanford Rd in Taigum and 82 titles @ Stanworth Rd in Boondall, Inertia’s Civil team have been thinking outside the box as they take two large projects from concept through approval and into reality.

Handford Rd Development

Inertia Civil Principal, Calvin Kirk, outlined how the team had managed to save hundreds of thousands of dollars for their client, through taking the time to think through challenges and plan the best possible solution. “On the Handford Rd site we had the age-old problem of what to do with all of the cut material that has to be removed from the site and disposed of.“

“As all developers know it is costly, time-consuming and expensive part of the development process. But because we are managing simultaneous projects for HBG, we were able to create earthwork models to essentially balance the cut from Handford to the fill down the road at Stanworth.”

“We have rolled this into the construction methodology and are now working through the tender process with several hand-picked contractors to optimise this philosophy in practice. This isn’t without its challenges as we need to prepare two sites while controlling erosion of sediment throughout the process. I’m excited to get the works underway for HBG and see the theory come off in practice. It was also vital for us to lessen the impact on the environment.”

“We have significantly decreased haulage of material through the city meaning we are burning less diesel and taking up less space with spoil. All in all, a result I’m extremely proud of.”

It is also noteworthy that the team captured the mythical OPW approval unicorn, an often discussed creature, but one that nobody is sure that it exists.

“We are delighted to say that we received approval for the development OPW package with no RFIs from the council. On such a complex site this is a huge achievement and saved significant time, resources and costs in the development process. To receive approval in such a way is a testament to the hard work that our team undertakes when working on through the detailed design of such complex projects.”

Stanworth Rd Development

The site at Stanworth Road also presented numerous design challenges through its complexity and proximity to a Queensland Rail corridor and as such required a significant level of work to ensure any development approval had a chance to succeed.

“On any site where you are seeking approval close to a piece of transport infrastructure, there are many considerations to take into account. On this site, it was to do with floodwater and surface runoff. The usual approach would be to install detention tanks to provide a non-worsening case for the surrounding environment after the development has taken place, but the standard solution in this instance would have cost in the vicinity of ¾ of a million dollars given the sheer amount of volume we needed to contain”.

“Thanks to our water engineers, we were able to complete a detailed flood analysis of the site and show that we could use existing stormwater infrastructure to manage the sites water flow and capacity. This removed the need for detention tanks and saved the client a significant outlay.”

The team are also rightly proud of their efforts to secure DA on a site involving challenging water management and close proximity to a rail corridor.

“Despite all of their work and diligence, approval for the development to the desired configuration and design was not guaranteed, and we were delighted to gain approval for the development with minimal RFIs from council.”

Moving forward, Inertia will be taking both sites through to civil completion, having managed design, the tender process, with Calvin Kirk acting as Site Superintendents and Daniel Gibson and Mick Brias managing the site works as Superintendent Representatives