Garage roof height change - Applied for planning permission and rejected.

[david656]

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.

[ProDave]

It is not clear, has planning permission actually been refused, or are they merely at the moment discussing the application with you and saying they are minded to refuse it for all sorts of odd reasons?

[david656]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

It is not clear, has planning permission actually been refused, or are they merely at the moment discussing the application with you and saying they are minded to refuse it for all sorts of odd reasons?

Sorry to be clear they have made their decision which is refusal:

 

NOTICE OF DECISION
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990

South Gloucestershire Council in pursuance of powers under the above mentioned Act hereby REFUSE to permit: 

Raising of garage roofline.

 

No discussion ever took place as such, and I wasn't made aware of any of the further remarks until after the refusal was issued. the only whiff of issue was them saying is it for commercial use perhaps and us saying absolutely not, to which in their final decision they carried on with that narrative.  

[ProDave]

They should provide the grounds on which they refused the permission.  i.e. reason for refusal.

 

I would appeal.  That costs you nothing.  Don't mention the Arcade machines, just focus on the fact at the moment you have a garage with very limited headroom that you cannot even stand upright in, and you just want to raise the height so it becomes a normal usable garage that you can stand up in,  keep your car in, perform normal maintenance tasks on the car, and have some shelving to store usual tools and materials.

[david656]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

They should provide the grounds on which they refused the permission.  i.e. reason for refusal.

 

I would appeal.  That costs you nothing.  Don't mention the Arcade machines, just focus on the fact at the moment you have a garage with very limited headroom that you cannot even stand upright in, and you just want to raise the height so it becomes a normal usable garage that you can stand up in,  keep your car in, perform normal maintenance tasks on the car, and have some shelving to store usual tools and materials.

Their reason for refusal is:

 

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.

 

Which having done a bit of googling it is a dangerous trump card councils can use when they just want to say 'no' without having a genuine reason for doing so. They have even contradicted their reason for refusal in their report by saying they didn't have an issue with the height. but essentially they seem to be saying by adding just one additional layer of brick it would change the visual look of the garage and this will not respect the character of the street! I joke not - it's a dump out there, broken down cars, caravans in gardens, bloke over the road has midnight raves the police never do anything about - it's a real classy place. 

 

We will be appealing and I hope to stress the absurdity of the current internal head height as a very valid reason for needing to increase the height. I would rather not mention anything about cars at all as 1) I have no intension of doing so and 2) it seems to give some aspect of truth to their completely false narrative. It's just extremely disappointing that they have refused in the way they have without actually engaging in conversation. I also fear that their weird 'character' trump card basically means any changes are off the cards as how can you change the height and keep it visually the same height - it isn't a Tardis!

[Alan Ambrose]

Hmmm, assuming you’re not in a conservation area etc, these are the permitted development rules:

 

• No outbuilding on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation.
• Outbuildings and garages to be single storey with maximum eaves height of 2.5 metres and maximum overall height of four metres with a dual pitched roof or three metres for any other roof.
• Maximum height of 2.5 metres in the case of a building, enclosure or container within two metres of a boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse.
• No more than half the area of land around the "original house"* would be covered by additions or other buildings.

Are you ‘breaking’ one or more of these? What kind of roof is it?

Edited October 29, 2023 by Alan Ambrose

[ProDave]

Perhaps a picture of your existing garage?  It it attached or detached?

 

You could do it under PD as above with a pitched roof limited to 2.5 metres at the eaves, which would not give the headroom you wanted at the eaves but would in the middle.  But at least you should be able to stand up at the eaves.

 

I read it as being a flat roofed garage at the moment and raising that to an internal height of 2.7M would make it more like 3M outside which would be above the PD rules.

[david656]

2 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Hmmm, assuming you’re not in a conservation area etc, these are the permitted development rules:

 

• No outbuilding on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation.
• Outbuildings and garages to be single storey with maximum eaves height of 2.5 metres and maximum overall height of four metres with a dual pitched roof or three metres for any other roof.
• Maximum height of 2.5 metres in the case of a building, enclosure or container within two metres of a boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse.
• No more than half the area of land around the "original house"* would be covered by additions or other buildings.

Are you ‘breaking’ one or more of these?

I'm absolutely not in a conservation area, it's the most boring run of the mill estate ever.

 

As I understand it those development rules are in the case of NOT needing planning, so you can build a garage with a flat roof maxing out at 3 meters without planning, but because of how awkward my neighbour is, and to avoid any issues I chose to go the planning route and do this 'properly' they are estimating the proposed higher side (flat sloping roof) will be about 3.2 meters - which is why I've gone the planning route. I know of many people with garages bigger than most houses, they have applied for planning because of this and got it approved. So it just seems ludicrous to me that they have clearly stated the height isn't actually the issue in principal, just that visually it won't be in keeping with the character of the street. which we said in the planning we will match the colour of the brick, extend the rendering where the side wall is rendered and matched. The other amusing thing is the house directly opposite ours had a garage that is in no way in keeping with the garages in the street, it's bigger squarer, generally quite ugly and that got approved in the 80s.

[david656]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Perhaps a picture of your existing garage?  It it attached or detached?

 

You could do it under PD as above with a pitched roof limited to 2.5 metres at the eaves, which would not give the headroom you wanted at the eaves but would in the middle.  But at least you should be able to stand up at the eaves.

 

I read it as being a flat roofed garage at the moment and raising that to an internal height of 2.7M would make it more like 3M outside which would be above the PD rules.

again this is a weird one, it is a flat sloping roof. there are no garages with pitched roofs in the area and apparently they would never be allowed at any height because it isn't in keeping.

 

The garage is detached from the house but attached to my other neighbours garage, who actually has no issue with this, always knew we were planning to raise the roof, and even commented he has heard me often bend down to pick something up, go to stand up quickly and nearly knock myself out as I slam into the roof. 

 

As I say the council haven't made any suggestions as to what they would be happy with, and I strongly believe they are angling this in a way that they wouldn't be happy with any changes ever.

 

[ProDave]

So you could do that under permitted development, 3 metres at the front reducing to 2.5 metres at the back.

 

OR make it slope sideways and level front to back, so 3M at the party wall side sloping down to 2.5M at the right as viewed from the front.

 

It would give you the high ceiling one side and should still be high enough to stand up at the other.

 

But that is just your fall back position of what you could do without PP should your appeal fail.

[david656]

Just now, ProDave said:

So you could do that under permitted development, 3 metres at the front reducing to 2.5 metres at the back.

 

OR make it slope sideways and level front to back, so 3M at the party wall side sloping down to 2.5M at the right as viewed from the front.

 

It would give you the high ceiling one side and should still be high enough to stand up at the other.

 

But that is just your fall back position of what you could do without PP should your appeal fail.

Yeah it's really good points of what 'could' be done with out planning permission, the funny thing is if I did what you suggest and slope it sideways that would totally change the appearance of it all.  Not that I would want to go this route but I would assume I could have a 3m dead flat roof across the entire garage and not need PP for that. What is so frustrating is I've tried to go the proper route here, I've used an architect, I've applied for planning permission blah blah, and they've rejected it without any sort of tangible reason. I've tried to go the right route as I know the neighbour will be out there and on the phone to the council moaning and I'll have someone come out and halt works - that's just the kinda guy this guy is.

[FuerteStu]

This awkward neighbour of yours.. Does he sit on the planning board or know someone who does? 

 

 

[david656]

9 minutes ago, FuerteStu said:

This awkward neighbour of yours.. Does he sit on the planning board or know someone who does? 

 

 

Not that I know of, however I find it very fishy that both he and the council used the same words about the height isn't required for a domestic garage. 

 

He is definitely petty, We put our bin out on the path (for bin day) and then he moves it closer to our drive way because he feels it's on his part of the path.. 

[Andehh]

Definitely appeal, using your guy to lead it on the appropriate clauses.

 

Please keep us update! Awkward neighbours are hard work.... Been there before!

[david656]

3 minutes ago, Andehh said:

Definitely appeal, using your guy to lead it on the appropriate clauses.

 

Please keep us update! Awkward neighbours are hard work.... Been there before!

Thanks, I will keep you updated. the planning guy is on holiday for a short while so I'm unlikely to know what's going on for a while. but we are both agreed that is very rude and unprofessional that the council have delayed and delayed, then not read anything, then decided to make something up because quite frankly they can't be bothered to do anything and just want to feel important.

[Alan Ambrose]

Well much sympathy, some of us have been there before...

 

Yeah, suggest, in parallel, (a) appeal the current design making much of 'I can't actually stand up in the current garage' and (b) submit an alternative design which works under PD and apply for a Lawful Development Certificate. I'm not sure I'm terribly impressed with your advisers for ending up at this point. 

[david656]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Well much sympathy, some of us have been there before...

 

Yeah, suggest, in parallel, (a) appeal the current design making much of 'I can't actually stand up in the current garage' and (b) submit an alternative design which works under PD and apply for a Lawful Development Certificate. I'm not sure I'm terribly impressed with your advisers for ending up at this point. 

Yeah... the planning chap I'm using (lovely guy) came recommended as he has handheld some big projects over the line,. I did warn him I'm very unlucky and this was bound to hit all sorts of weird blockers because of awkward neighbours etc, but I think he thought this one would walk itself over the line and it hasn't.  

 

At the end of the day to a normal person, how complicated can/should it be to get 3ft added to your garage height? ... in this world and my case, extremely sodding difficult!

 

I've got to wait for him to get back from holiday and hopefully ask them why they haven't contacted us about any of these false claims, and ask them to reconsider via appeal.

[Andehh]

And in FURTHER parallel to what Alan said.... Each week move your bin further down the path!

 

If you can't beat them on the beaches or beat them in the trenches... Go for the morale low ground, petty and pathetic... And bask in the smugness of him moving the bin back Every. Single. Week. 

[david656]

18 minutes ago, Andehh said:

And in FURTHER parallel to what Alan said.... Each week move your bin further down the path!

 

If you can't beat them on the beaches or beat them in the trenches... Go for the morale low ground, petty and pathetic... And bask in the smugness of him moving the bin back Every. Single. Week. 

oh we're past that - he passively aggressively reverses into the bin until its closer to our side with the back of his van

 

Also the household is him and his wife and they have 4 vehicles between the 2 of them, with 1 always in the garage and a double drive way, but for some unknown reason they don't like to park on the driveway, so they park all over the street but they start up one car, have it running, jump in the other car, start that up and move that one off that part of the road/path what ever, then move the other one immediately into the space. it's a full blown military operation of them out there moving these cars about rather than just parking on their drive. if they're lazy they do, but usually there is 1 car on the drive and 2 parked on the street in spaces they have claimed as theirs. 

 

the chap on the other side is in his 70s and bless him he's lovely but equally certifiable, he likes to get up at 6am and start running up and down the stairs for his fitness routine and rounds up about 11pm. although last night at 10 past midnight he did decide to mix it up and start moving his wardrobes around... 

 

I think in summary, I wish that house prices weren't so ridiculous that we could have afforded something detached and in a better area is the moral of this story. But sadly we couldn't, I've accepted the older guy is very noisy but nice, I've accepted the bloke that objects to us breathing is just miserable in life, but what I can't accept is how they feel they have some sort of hold over what we do in the privacy of our own home. Another reason I want the garage roof raised is so if it gets a bit much in the house (listening to either neighbours doing what ever the hell they do, at least I can go and sit in the garage!

[DevilDamo]

There is no PD fallback position so you have no choice but to apply for Planning. Tbh, I can see and agree with the LPA’s decision. It makes it worse that it’s attached to the neighbours’ garage.

[david656]

1 hour ago, DevilDamo said:

There is no PD fallback position so you have no choice but to apply for Planning. Tbh, I can see and agree with the LPA’s decision. It makes it worse that it’s attached to the neighbours’ garage.

that neighbour hasn't objected, and why do you say there is no PD fallback? Thanks.

[DevilDamo]

22 hours ago, david656 said:

that neighbour hasn't objected, and why do you say there is no PD fallback? Thanks.

Because it’s within 2m of the boundary and would exceed 2.5m in height. PD doesn’t also allow you to build onto or above a neighbours wall which may form the boundary.