Hi All,
First time poster so fingers crossed I don't put a foot wrong immediately!
I'm Dave, early 30s, work in IT, lots of hobbies around technology, Bang & Olufsen HiFi equipment, old computers, video games, arcade machines, soldering and repair work, generally handy when it comes to DIY, fitted my own kitchen and bathroom etc.
The short version of history, in 2019 I found myself in a stressful job, I'd also been screwed out of a lot of money for a project that went bad, found myself in hospital through stress for 9 days in a real bad way, body shutting down, screaming in pain, the lot - very weird but also proof stress manifests itself for me in a very physical way. When I got out of hospital I resigned from my job, got a new job, raised a deposit to buy a house and by October got the keys to a house. The house in question was purchased due to the fact it had a really nice sized garage, off road parking and was a nice size for the price we could afford. The guy we purchased off was an absolute idiot and managed to be as unhelpful as possible, he then continued to take out bills and contracts in our address and for 2 years we were fighting with HMRC and the council to remove him from our address through fear of bailiffs turning up when he didn't pay them. He also had multiple businesses registered to the address and was wracking up tax bills that he wasn't paying. When we finally got into the house we realised it was a lot worse than the survey had said and needed a rewire and a re-plumb as well as loads and loads of other work. Simplistically we have modernised and made it our own.
As I say the primary reason for picking the house was the lovely sized garage, however there was one problem, the internal roof height was 6ft dead from the floor to the bottom of the roof joists and I'm 6ft 3' - So simplistically I cannot stand up in my own garage.
We're now multiple years on and I've had a really bad 12/18 months as last year my grandmother who raised me and was 97 passed away of dementia which was absolutely horrible. I had to arrange her care and do what I could to be there for her and after her passing manage out her wishes etc - so it's been a massive emotional roller coaster.
I'll skip ahead to Friday 27th October (the Friday just gone) that marked a year of my grans passing and also the council rejecting my planning.
To the planning. I've appointed a planning guy/architect to come out and measure up the garage, the only thing that I'm changing is the physical height, adding about 3ft to the over all internal height.
The reason for this is so I a) have enough head room to be able to stand up and b) so I can store my small collection of arcade machines which at present are taller than the internal head height and cannot be assembled because of this.
I also have a neighbour that to put it politely thinks he should have the final say on what we do and feels he is superior to us, probably due to an age/status sort of thing and that they have the end of terrace house - so obviously their needs matter more than everyone else's.
The planning was submitted on the 2nd of August and with in 2 weeks he would of been notified and instantly objected with the following: "Would be interested to know why an internal height of 2.7 meters is needed in a domestic garage. Please define the final usage application."
The deadline for a decision was supposed to be September sometime but the planning guy at the Council was off sick, no one had picked up his work load and when I spoke to him he said there would be an additional 2 week delay. after those 2 weeks I emailed him and he had asked for another week or 2 extension.
The council have objected in some pretty interesting ways, initially they objected saying: "They are objecting to the proposal on the grounds that the increased roof height is sought to make the garage suitable for another use i.e commercial business. They are also objecting to the scale and impact of the height increase."
The planning chap asked to do a site visit and I said I was available every day that week except Monday afternoon - he never ended up coming to site and I heard nothing more from him until I was notified of the refusal. We had replied to him offering the site visit as requested and categorically confirming it wasn't for commercial use and was in fact for storage of computer and video game machines.
I've now seen further refusal comments from the council: "Council Members would like confirmation that the neighbours have been consulted as they are concerned about the impact the 50% extra height of the new garage roof could have on them and wish to know their views. This information is required prior to determination. Once received, please re-consult."
This statement annoyed me as if they'd of looked at the file they would have seen the neighbours had already been consulted months prior. The planning chap explained and reminded them of this, and also explained to them it was not for commercial use.
They then replied again: "Apologies for the delay in getting back to you,
Members have reviewed your below comments and have confirmed their concern/objection still stands for the following reasons.
• A consideration is the roof height may be increased to accommodate a block and tackle to lift engines out of cars, If this is the case, the garage has a change of use to commercial premises.
• The height is not required for a domestic garage. They are not altering the entrance to eg. put a caravan in there. The application is about redesigning the building to make it suitable for another use.
• scale and impact."
These comments have really annoyed me, we've stated multiple times this is not for commercial use, they have somehow started to make up a completely false narrative of taking engines out of cars? And it seems saying that because I'm not fitting a larger garage door there is something fishy about my motives and essentially they're rejecting it. Does that mean if I requested a bigger garage door they would have said yes?
Finally after all this back and forth (but not to us I might add, we had not seen any of these comments nor been asked to comment on them), the final refusal came through and it seems to be full of contradictions:
Objection:
- Concerns the garage will be used for commercial purposes.
- Height not required for a domestic garage.
- Scale and impact.
5.1 Principle of Development
Policy PSP38 of the PSP Plan (November 2017) allows the principle of development within residential curtilages, subject to considerations of visual amenity, residential amenity and highway safety.
5.2 Design and Visual Amenity
Policy CS1 of the Core Strategy and policy PSP38 of the Policies, Sites and Places Plan seek to ensure that development proposals are of the highest possible standards of design. This means that developments should be informed by, respect, and enhance the character, distinctiveness and amenity of both the site and its context.
While, ordinarily, garages at the rear are somewhat screened from public view, here the uniformity of the garages form an important part of the visual appearance and character of the area due to the fact they are street facing.
It is acknowledged that the existing garage has already been enlarged in width and depth and therefore has already caused a degree of visual harm. By increasing the height of the garage by 1 metre, the proposal would exacerbate the harm. Although in isolation this does not seem a significant amount, the impact of raising the roof on a building that has already been enlarged would only serve to dramatically increase its prominence and dominance within the streetscene, particularly considering the uniformity in height of all other garages.
As such, the proposal is not considered to respect the context or character of the site and would not represent high quality design. It is therefore contrary to policy CS1 of the Core Strategy and PSP1 of the Policies, Sites and Places Plan. The application should therefore be refused.
Policy PSP38 of the Policies, Sites and Places Plan explains that development will be permitted provided that it would not detrimentally impact the residential amenities of nearby occupiers and would not prejudice the retention of adequate private amenity space. Policy PSP8 outlines the types of issues that could result in an unacceptable impact.
he footprint of the existing garage would not be altered and therefore the amenity space afforded to the occupiers would not be impacted. The roof height, although being increased would slope downwards towards the dwelling. At its tallest point, the proposed garage would be approximately 3.2 metres. This is not considered to be so excessive in height that it would result in any significantly detrimental impact to any of the neighbouring occupiers, in terms of overbearing or loss of light impact.
Policy PSP38 of the Policies, Sites and Places Plan sets out the Councils parking standards. The proposal would not impact on existing parking arrangements.
It has been suggested by the Council and a neighbouring occupier that the proposed increase in roof height is to allow a business to operate from the garage. However, the application is not proposing any change of use, it is therefore reasonable to assume that the garage would remain used for a purpose incidental to the house.
By reason of its size and scale, the proposed raising of the garage roofline would not sufficiently respect the character or context of the immediately surrounding area and would detrimentally harm the character and appearance of the area. The proposal would therefore not represent high quality design, contrary to policy CS1 of the South Gloucestershire Local
Plan: Core Strategy (Adopted) December 2013; Policy PSP1 of the South Gloucestreshire Local Plan: Policies, Sites and Places Plan (Adopted) November 2017; and the NPPF.
NOW... I'm obviously massively upset about this refusal, to summarise, I do NOT plan to run a business from this garage or indeed this address generally, I have never worked on nor do I ever plan to work on cars at this address, the closed I've ever got to working on a car is washing my car on a Sunday! A site visit was never performed. To me the interesting point of the points above is that interestingly they do not have an issue with the planned height change, just an issue with the fact the garage would look different to other garages in height and wouldn't fit with the 'character' of the street. I live in a pretty run down part of Bristol, it's cheap and cheap for a reason, there is no local beauty spots, no conservation areas and the estate is a late 60s poorly built estate that is looking its age. I'm also really interested in this obsession over the height is not required for a domestic garage - almost like there is some made up law that I'd be breaking in trying to do so. But how can someone's opinion on what is or is not required for domestic use allowed to influence law and the planning approval?
Obviously my planning guy will be appealing and going back on this, but as it stands essentially I've been told my legal request to be able to stand upright in my own garage and store my own private possessions which isn't harming anyone else, or impacting on anyone else - has been denied!
I'd be really interested to see what other peoples thoughts are on this, my stress levels were off the charts Friday and yesterday and I was just sat in a dark room taking pain killers as when stressed I suffer with extreme headaches. I don't understand how someone can make up a entirely false narrative and condemn me against it without having ever spoken to me or my planning representative, nor having actually confirmed if any of this is even true! Thanks for now.
