Wantirna South Concrete

From orchards to a growing centre

According to Wikipedia, Wantirna South was mostly orchards until around 80 years ago. Housing demand picked up from the 1920s, and the Wantirna South Post Office opened in 1936. It was later renamed Studfield, after the shopping centre it sits in. In more recent decades, several new residential estates have added a lake, parks, community gardens and a shopping centre. Density has been rising with new apartment complexes, a trend Wikipedia notes is forecast to continue.

A suburb of big homes and new townhouses

The 2021 Census shows two sides to Wantirna South. Just over half of all homes (50.6%) had four or more bedrooms, a high share for a middle-ring suburb. At the same time, 17.6% of dwellings were semi-detached or townhouses and 4.7% were flats. That's a noticeably denser mix than neighbouring Scoresby.

Concrete jobs follow the same split (our inference):

Knox crossover rules for subdivided lots

When a block is subdivided in Wantirna South, the driveway and crossover plan is often the trickiest part of the concrete work. The City of Knox's rules are the reference point:

• Permit first. Knox requires a Road Opening Permit before excavation in the road reserve, and building or changing a vehicle crossing counts as that. Your application needs a site plan showing trees, pits, kerb, drains and other assets. A council officer inspects the site, and approved permits are emailed within five business days, according to Knox.
• One per property. Knox's new crossing guideline allows one crossing per rateable property.
• Spacing between neighbours. If a new crossing would sit within 2.4 metres of an adjoining crossing, it's treated as a double crossing.
• Minimum width. 2.8 metres.
• Old crossings. Redundant crossings must be removed, and the kerb and nature strip reinstated, at the owner's expense.
• Altering an existing crossing. Knox's separate guideline for alterations and widening requires written approval.
• Traffic management. If the property is on a collector or link road, a traffic management plan is part of the application.

We'll plan the concrete around your approved subdivision layout and council's requirements. Knox road reserve permits

Shared driveways done properly

Shared driveways get a lot of use and are expensive to fix if they're built poorly. Things we pay attention to:

• Falls and drainage so water doesn't sit against garage doors or run onto neighbouring units
• Joint layout that follows unit boundaries and changes in direction
• Reinforcement and thickness suited to shared traffic and occasional delivery or removal trucks
• Finish that's practical and consistent across all dwellings, often exposed aggregate for durability and looks
• Staging so residents can still get in and out where a development is partly occupied

A concrete checklist for small developments

If you're building two or three dwellings, sorting these early avoids delays at the end of the job:

1. 1Confirm the crossover layout on the endorsed planning drawings, and check it against Knox's spacing and one-per-property rules.
2. 2Locate services: stormwater pits, sewer, water meters and NBN pits all affect where driveways and crossings can go.
3. 3Coordinate levels between garage floors, driveways and the footpath so the transitions work for cars and pedestrians.
4. 4Allow for inspections of steel for structural slabs, and council inspections for road reserve works.
5. 5Program the driveways last, after heavy construction traffic has finished, so new concrete isn't damaged.
6. 6Budget time for footpath reinstatement if construction damages the public footpath.

Drainage and the flood basin

Wikipedia mentions that the Knox City Tennis Club backs onto Wantirna South's "well-known flood basin". We don't know how drainage works on your particular street, and we won't assume anything. What we always do is plan where stormwater from new concrete will go, with falls away from buildings and connection to the legal point of discharge where required. On larger paved areas, strip drains or pits keep runoff under control.

Ground conditions

There's no suburb-specific soil data we can cite for Wantirna South. Research on Melbourne soils shows reactivity varies widely, even within one soil type, so we follow the site classification and engineer's design for slabs and give every driveway a well-compacted base.

Around Wantirna South

Knox City Council's headquarters are here. The original building burnt down in 1994 and took a few years to rebuild. Westfield Knox opened in the 1970s and was significantly refurbished in 2002, creating the Knox O-Zone dining and entertainment area. The State Basketball Centre is the training and corporate home of the South East Melbourne Phoenix. The suburb also has a Swinburne University campus, the Knox Police Complex on Burwood Highway, and schools including The Knox School, Waverley Christian College and St Andrews Christian College.