Why Choose Us

The Leaders in Granny Flat Designs, Approvals and Building

We are a uniquely dedicated granny flat service, with our main goal focused on saving you time and money. This means protecting our clients from unnecessary expense where it applies to granny flat designs, approvals and in the construction phase of your project:

Designs

We believe in designing to a budget, not to a dream. This means creating realistically achievable granny flat plans so that your budget is not blown when it comes time to actually building your new dwelling. In truth, almost any architectural drafting service can draft beautiful looking plans. The real skill in design is asking if the building can be constructed on your site and if it will meet your specific budget. This means paying very close attention to the constraints and layout of your property and cross-referencing these elements with the desired outcome of the client. Another aspect of skilful design is the ability to choose materials and finishes which compliments the existing main dwelling, the surrounding properties and the natural environment. A skillion-roofed granny flat may look great poised on a hilltop overlooking the ocean but will it match the landscape in the middle of a small country town or in a leafy suburb?

An important skill in granny flat design is knowing who the reader is. This means creating plans, specifications and BASIX (Energy Efficiency) Certificates which can be read by the Owner, the Builder and the Approving Body; whether it’s your Local Council or a Private Certifier. At Granny Flats Sydney, we are constantly looking at ALL aspects of the design and how it will respond to the property in it’s built form; all the while being mindful of the client’s budget. We invite you to read our many granny flat design articles, which focus-in on many critical design points specific to the Australian landscape and for the Australian buyer.

Approvals

You only need to search the Internet for “Granny Flat Approvals” and you will find that the principal, Serge Panayi, is intimately involved with all aspects of building approvals across Sydney and NSW. Serge Panayi has been designing and submitting Building Approvals for over three decades now, not only for residential projects but also for commercial and industrial developments. A vital skill needed in attaining building approvals is knowing how to circumvent a few ‘landmines’ in order to save the client both time and money. This means creating clear and legible plans but it also means knowing the Building Code of Australia intimately plus all Australian Standards. It pays to keep up to date with all modern design solutions.

It also saves our clients money when we know how to avoid employing unnecessary ‘professionals’ wherever possible. An excellent example of this, is the creation of high-quality and accurate Site and Drainage Plans. When we measure our sites, we use Surveyors Total Stations costing thousands of dollars to measure the property, providing contoured & spot levels, vegetation detail, fencing detail, Paved and Concrete areas, clear and concise calculations and all other analyses of the property which help to support the entire development proposal. You’d have trouble distinguishing our site-plans from that of a registered or ‘detail survey’. This is because we have the experience and we take the time to ensure our plans are more than adequate to achieve fast and efficient granny flat approval, without delays and without errors. We also know how to satisfy the various Government regulations as it applies to drainage solutions, sewer mitigation strategies and efficient connection to services, to name just a few granny flat solutions.

Our experience has also taught us ways to save our clients thousands of dollars on Hydraulic Engineers, Registered Surveyors and Tree Arborists, to name just a few areas where other architectural services don’t have the knowledge and experience to avoid employing these practitioners- remember, it’s the client who has to pay these very expensive fees. We are also extremely apt at predicting where and when an issue will arise, so we work at resolving these issues prior to the approval process- this is so our clients save on unnecessary costs and time. It takes a lot of experience to fully protect a developer and our policy is to carefully and tentatively lead our clients through the approval mine-field, so that they are legally and financially protected from unnecessary hardship at all times.

No system is perfect and it often takes experienced and dedicated people, working within an industry to invoke change and positive innovation. We invite you to search out the experts in not only granny flat approvals but other facets of building and you will find that the Principal, Serge Panayi, is at the spearhead of many public cost-saving strategies, Department of Planning Workshops and various other lobby groups devoted to avoiding unnecessary Government Fees, such as Section-94 Contribution Levies imposed (by some Councils) on new secondary dwellings across NSW. Serge Panayi is an active contributor in various online investor and property-developments forums, where he offers free advice to new and experienced developers, sharing ideas and strategies to help Australians realise their property developments dreams with minimal fuss and minimal financial loss. We invite you to read our Granny Flat Approval Guide and our Approval Logic-Map, which visually illustrates the best road to achieving your granny flat approval.

In short, we are well educated in the relevant aspects of hydraulic and structural engineering, surveying, interior design, landscape architecture and quality building, to name just a few building and development arenas. We say this, not to boast, but to illustrate what it really takes to save our clients time and money on their granny flat design, approval and the entire building process. We believe in not just being ‘adequate’, but to excel.

Building

Here at Granny Flat Sydney we’re not just designing, approving and building granny flats. We are problem-solvers who understand the goals of our investors and families alike. Our service is dedicated to achieving optimum results and getting the job done right, the very first time. This means always being committed to delivering a premium product for every single client, whilst producing value and dependability which is only matched by our customer service. We aim to be the best and we are never satisfied. This is because we love what we do and we enjoy saving our clients.

There’s simply no other granny flat builder providing Turn-Key Build Pricing for all to see. We don’t size you up and see what we can charge you- this is what the other companies do. This is why we are different from the rest. We openly and transparently advertise our pricing, which we know is very competitive. We also openly offer our prices to everyone, regardless of intellect or industry knowledge. This is a trust we have earned within our industry. This is a policy of honesty which we value more than money.

No other business does this- anywhere. We are frankly offended by the notion that a building company can set their net, wait for an uneducated buyer to walk into their office so that they can ‘see’ how much they can get away with charging them. We find this to be honestly abhorrent. We demonstrate this by offering a free advice and knowledge on our website and by providing turn-key build pricing for all Australians.

We also demonstrate this by listening to our customers and continually seeking new ways to improve our own processes – not just in service but by being continually committed to saving you time and money. We do this by concentrating on project details and the bigger picture. We have built our reputation through years of consistent work, delivering quality services and value, which our clients have come to know and expect. We respect our clients needs for quality building products, reliable builders and committed support staff.

We invite you to navigate through our Testimonials, our Completed Projects, our Granny Flat Approval Guides and our many granny flat articles, which are a collaboration of specific industry knowledge and experiences since the inception of granny flat approvals in early 2009. We hope they help with your specific design goals, your approval needs and your personal building budget.

Feel free to drop us a line and let us know what you think. We’d be very happy to help wherever we can.

Warm Regards,

Serge Panayi – Granny Flats Sydney.