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We can build sheds, verandahs and decks and keep Freshwater Creek’s farm and lifestyle homes in good repair. It is almost all farmland, right up to the Torquay boundary, and we already work in Torquay and Mount Duneed next door.
Freshwater Creek is farming country on the Anglesea Road between Torquay, Mount Duneed and Bellbrae, with a store, a hall, a fire station and a Steiner school.
The median property is about 12.5 hectares, and more than half of homes have four or more bedrooms. That means sheds, verandahs, decks and the repairs that come with open farm blocks. We have done 23 jobs in Torquay and 12 in Mount Duneed, both next door.
Almost all of Freshwater Creek is Farming Zone, where a new house needs a permit unless the lot is at least 60 hectares, which most aren’t. An extension of up to 200 square metres to an existing house, or an outbuilding of up to 250 square metres that goes with it, needs no permit under the zone if it is 20 metres from most roads, 5 metres from boundaries, 100 metres from a neighbour’s house and 100 metres from a waterway, wetland or designated flood plain. Overlays can still apply.
In August 2026 the Spring Creek growth area west of Torquay was turned back into farmland as a green break. Spring Creek lies outside Freshwater Creek, and there is no growth or residential zoning inside Freshwater Creek itself. The whole locality is bushfire prone, and the Bushfire Management Overlay covers 32 addresses. Flood and native vegetation overlays apply in parts, so we check the address first.
Looking after the school, the hall or a farm business around Freshwater Creek? That side of our work is on our commercial carpentry page.
What Freshwater Creek’s farm and lifestyle homes need most.
Verandahs for houses on open, windy blocks.
Decks off the back of acreage homes.
Extensions up to 200 m² without a zone permit, if the setbacks fit.
House-yard and paddock fences.
Farm and driveway gates.
Weatherboards on older farmhouses.
Doors and windows that cop the weather.
Tell us the road and what you’re planning.
Setbacks, flood, vegetation and bushfire, before anything is priced.
Itemised, so you can see where the money goes.
One crew, with the site cleared when we leave.
Michael worked with our budget and we were so impressed by their diligence and workmanship. They did not cut corners but went the extra mile. So impressed we engaged them again at another property.
Beyond our expectations, and it was great to work with people who could turn our ideas into something better than we imagined. Couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
Prompt, great communication and a terrific job. Have used JF Maintenance for lots of work over the years and would recommend.
German settlers built a Lutheran church on Blackgate Road in 1859, later replaced by a bluestone church that is now on the Victorian Heritage Register. The state school closed in 1993.
The 2021 census counted 454 residents with a median age of 45, nearly all in separate houses. Big farm blocks and strict farming rules are why the work here is planned before it is built.
Torquay • Mount Duneed • Bellbrae • Moriac • Mount Moriac
Freshwater Creek borders Mount Duneed, Paraparap, Bellbrae, Mount Moriac, Torquay and Moriac.
Tell us the road and the job, and we will come back with what the rules allow and a free estimate.