Replacement dwelling

[Russell griffiths]

So looking for any hints or tips that anybody has used in trying to get consent for a replacement dwelling. 

Our case officer keeps quoting policy 22 in the town plan about size of the replacement, and we are finding evidence of other dwellings that have gained approval that did not comply with policy 22 to counterattack his argument. 

We are just after a few more pointers in case we have missed anything. 

To fill you in a bit, we have a house on site that is 66m with lots of sheds and outbuildings present. 

The propossed plan is to replace this with a house of 166m with an attached garage and carport. 

What he is doing is refusing to accept any of the outbuildings on site in any measurements, so basically only saying we have 66m to base our new dwelling on. 

Any thoughts appreciated no matter how random. 

Cheers russ. 

[bassanclan]

Wooden sheds will be classed as temporary buildings and not really part of the dwelling or living space. He's saying if you want to replace/keep these sheds & outbuildings and build a 66m^2 replacement dwelling that might be acceptable.

 

One approach you should consider is what size is the house after you have maximised permitted development?

 

E.g max rear and side extensions + loft conversion  (even if in practice you wouldn't want to) and use that as a basis for your arguments.

[Jeremy Harris]

My advice is to make two scale models, one of the site as it is now, one as it would look if your proposal was granted.  People have problems visualising stuff from plans, and are getting mistrustful of computer graphics, but still seem to trust scale model representations.

 

It doesn't take that long to make a pair of reasonable scale models, I found, and the one I made really turned the tables at the planning meeting.  I'd go so far to say that it was the single most significant contribution in getting people on side.

[Gone West]

@Russell griffiths Are your areas total floor areas or footprints. We used the area of two single garages plus the existing bungalow footprint when we applied for our replacement house. They were particularly awkward and didn't want an increase in footprint. In the end we managed to get an increase in footprint of ~ 10% which combined with the first floor gave us a lot more floor area than the bungalow. We used the argument that modern living requires more space than 100 years ago.

Edited October 20, 2017 by PeterStarck

[ragg987]

When we applied we pushed the footprint from 92m2 (existing bungalow, excluding various outhouses) to 178m2 (which includes a detached garage). We felt we had taken care of any concerns with the increased size so just went for it - my architect did caution that there may be an issue in this approach, however Planning accepted it without any comment.

 

From our Design and Access statement:

Quote

The proposed footprint is 178sqm which is larger than the existing dwelling footprint of 92sqm. However, we feel that a 0.1 hectare site can easily accommodate this increased footprint and still give plenty of amenity space to the front and rear without encroaching on the neighbouring properties boundaries. The proposed dwelling maintains generous offsets to the boundaries and properties either side.

 

I think that statement sums up the possible objections pretty well. I do not recall our council publishing any firm foorprint limits.

Edited October 20, 2017 by ragg987
typo

[Russell griffiths]

Thanks guys all comments taken on board we are covering everything that has been mentioned. 

Except @JSHarris I have thought about this and may have a go, can you tell me what you made the models out of. 

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Thanks guys all comments taken on board we are covering everything that has been mentioned. 

Except @JSHarris I have thought about this and may have a go, can you tell me what you made the models out of. 

 

For the scale model of the whole site, I used ply base board, then cut out layers of 5mm thick foamboard to the contours from the topo survey.  I just printed off the topo survey to scale and then used spray mount to glue the printed sheets to the foamboard, which then made cutting along the contour lines with a craft knife easy.  A bit of polyfilla to fill the steps and I had a reasonable representation of the ground. 

 

The buildings were all made using 2mm  liteply, a very easy to cut modelling ply, that's far more forgiving than balsa and yet is easily cut with a craft knife.  I used the same technique, drawing up the walls and roof outlines to scale, printing them off and then using spray mount to stick them to the sheet of liteply.  A steel rule as a guide plus a sharp craft work made cutting out the panels easy.  To glue the buildings together, I used modellers super glue, the stuff that cures very quickly when glueing balsa or liteply (modellers seem to refer to it as "zap glue").

 

I did add textures to my model, using stuff from the local model railway store, who sold stuff like grass and gravel texture powder that you just sprinkle on to a glued surface.  The same store also sold bits of died dry moss than worked well for adding shrubs, or making small trees (I used cocktail sticks, dyed with felt pen, for the trunks).

 

I found that after I'd made the first model, which took a few hours, I could make additional models very quickly, less than an hour, as there is a knack to finding the best way to do stuff.  On the final model, the bits of paper that I printed out for the walls, roof etc I pre-textured, so that a bit of water colour paint gave a more realistic looking finish.  This was the model I took to the planning meeting:

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

You really are a clever old stick @JSHarris

do you fancy doing mine we are not that far apart

[Jeremy Harris]

The time consuming bit isn't making the model, it's getting everything from the topo plan to the building plan and elevations to the same scale and in the same CAD format.  Once that's done, the model making is really just a bit like painting by numbers, with the glued on scale drawings as the templates.

 

In your case, what would be useful would be to be able to show the planning committee "before" and "after" views of the whole site, to scale, so that they can see the relative impact of your proposal versus what's already there.  The hardest part may well be getting scale drawings for all the existing buildings, as my guess is that you may already have them for what you're proposing.  The key is really having them all in a format that can be made common.  In my case, the guys that did the topo survey emailed me a .dxf file, I purchased the site plan map from the Ordnance Survey as a .dxf file (so used that for the base map) and I had done all the design drawings for the house in Autocad, that will happily read in .dxf files.  This means that, with a bit of tweaking of units, I was able to get all the data to the same scale and in the same file format, which then meant I was able to make up printable sheets of parts, that were spray mounted to the material that had to be cut.

 

The rest was just a bit of fun, and didn't take anywhere near as long as getting all the drawings together.

[Declan52]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

 

For the scale model of the whole site, I used ply base board, then cut out layers of 5mm thick foamboard to the contours from the topo survey.  I just printed off the topo survey to scale and then used spray mount to glue the printed sheets to the foamboard, which then made cutting along the contour lines with a craft knife easy.  A bit of polyfilla to fill the steps and I had a reasonable representation of the ground. 

 

The buildings were all made using 2mm  liteply, a very easy to cut modelling ply, that's far more forgiving than balsa and yet is easily cut with a craft knife.  I used the same technique, drawing up the walls and roof outlines to scale, printing them off and then using spray mount to stick them to the sheet of liteply.  A steel rule as a guide plus a sharp craft work made cutting out the panels easy.  To glue the buildings together, I used modellers super glue, the stuff that cures very quickly when glueing balsa or liteply (modellers seem to refer to it as "zap glue").

 

I did add textures to my model, using stuff from the local model railway store, who sold stuff like grass and gravel texture powder that you just sprinkle on to a glued surface.  The same store also sold bits of died dry moss than worked well for adding shrubs, or making small trees (I used cocktail sticks, dyed with felt pen, for the trunks).

 

I found that after I'd made the first model, which took a few hours, I could make additional models very quickly, less than an hour, as there is a knack to finding the best way to do stuff.  On the final model, the bits of paper that I printed out for the walls, roof etc I pre-textured, so that a bit of water colour paint gave a more realistic looking finish.  This was the model I took to the planning meeting:

 

 

That would most definitely get a blue Peter badge. I would say the planning committee would have been blown away when they where confronted with this type of approach.

[Jeremy Harris]

14 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

That would most definitely get a blue Peter badge. I would say the planning committee would have been blown away when they where confronted with this type of approach.

 

They were!  I've told the tale before, but in essence our Parish Council Planning Committee meeting started with the chairman reading out all the past applications, the reasons for refusal and the 14 objections that had been raised by them to the previous application.  At this point, a very outgoing elderly lady member, who had been looking at the model we'd left on the table in front of them, turned to us (the only two members of the public present) and asked if we were the applicants.  I replied that were were not allowed to speak to members of the committee.  The clerk reinforced this view to the lady member.  She carried on regardless, saying it was a silly rule, asked a few questions, then remarked that this was nothing like the previous applications, and being set down in the hillside (to exactly the same level as all the previous applications that had attracted loads of objections) meant that she could see no reason why it shouldn't be supported.  She then sort of railroaded the others, saying something like "Well, you all agree with me, don't you?".  The result was unanimous support.............

Edited October 20, 2017 by JSHarris

[Declan52]

Most people have a real problem visualizing from plans. My wife must be one of the worst I have ever came across and everything I done I have to draw it out numerous times on 3d software to try to get her to get a grasp what was on the plan. Wasn't until the walls where up that she agreed that the bathroom was massive, I had shrunk it a bit to make our bedroom and the hall a bit wider and she was fretting that it would be too small even though it was still bigger than our bedroom in the previous house.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, Declan52 said:

Most people have a real problem visualizing from plans. My wife must be one of the worst I have ever came across and everything I done I have to draw it out numerous times on 3d software to try to get her to get a grasp what was on the plan. Wasn't until the walls where up that she agreed that the bathroom was massive, I had shrunk it a bit to make our bedroom and the hall a bit wider and she was fretting that it would be too small even though it was still bigger than our bedroom in the previous house.

 

Mine's the same, and I had exactly the same issue with the size of the bathroom - she didn't want the shower to be cramped.  My solution was to make a series of models as the design of the house matured, so she could see and comment on each area.  This was the final model, and is pretty much how the house was built, with the exception that I added a walk-in wardrobe later:

 

 

 

 

 

When the house was up, the first comment was "The shower is absolutely massive...............".

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

You really are a clever old stick @JSHarris

do you fancy doing mine we are not that far apart

 

Get your kids to take the model in and pretend they made it. Unwashed, holes in their clothes, maybe borrow a malnourished dog; "Please Mister, can we have a new house!" style, that should sway it!

[jack]

What is "policy 22"?

 

Unless you're in the countryside, I can't see why the difference in size is relevant. We went from an 89m2 bungalow to a 290m2 house with attached double garage. We were surrounded by large houses though, and we're on a good size block, so the new house was perfectly appropriate.

 

What're the houses around you like, and is your block big enough to comfortably take a house of the planned size?

[AliG]

I knocked down around 220sq metres including garages and replaced with 504sq metres.

 

Although there may be some reference in the planning guidance to replacement dwellings there is usually also some reference to acceptable coverage of a plot. In the conservation area I am building in the limit is considered to be 20% of the area for the building and 20% more for driveways patios etc. My house is 19.8% of the plot. In an urban area that is not a conservation area coverage can go much higher.

 

It is a very good rule to show these figures in the block plan e.g 4000sq metres plot, 200sq metre ground floor so 5% coverage, but architects don't always do it. Unless of course the figures actually look bad then best not to mention them

 

You can also take rough measurements of neighbouring houses to show what the prevailing plot coverage is in the area, you might get the outlines of them from the planning website. Although there are not really  planning precedents you can point to whether or not your house is in keeping with the plot coverage in the surrounding area.

 

[Ferdinand]

4 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

Get your kids to take the model in and pretend they made it. Unwashed, holes in their clothes, maybe borrow a malnourished dog; "Please Mister, can we have a new house!" style, that should sway it!

 

There is a template for that.

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

7 hours ago, jack said:

What is "policy 22"?

 

Unless you're in the countryside, I can't see why the difference in size is relevant. We went from an 89m2 bungalow to a 290m2 house with attached double garage. We were surrounded by large houses though, and we're on a good size block, so the new house was perfectly appropriate.

 

What're the houses around you like, and is your block big enough to comfortably take a house of the planned size?

Policy 22 according to Cotswold district council restricts any replacement dwelling to be SIMILAR in size to the original property. 

We are asking to build a house that is 166m with an attached garage of 43m we have a piece of land in excess of 14 acres. 

apart from our other house that is small. all property around us are large detached barn conversions or substantiall old farm houses with loads of outbuildings. 

 

Our neighbour who is completely on our side has a seven bed five bath place. 

 

Every single bit of our application  makes perfect sense, the planning officer just has a hang up over this similar in size wording. 

[Jml]

Can you easily make any of the outbuildings ‘part of the house’ into a garage, workshop, office, utility room etc. perhaps, in order to increase current houses footprint?

[Jml]

Out of curiosity just did google search ‘cotswold district council  policy 22’ second item down a pdf, don’t know if you have seen it, seems pretty onerous!  But read JSHarris post below.

 

 

Replacement-dwellings-ADVICE-NOTE-FINAL-VERSION.pdf

Edited October 21, 2017 by Jml
Pdf attached eventually

[Jeremy Harris]

The key problem here seems to be how the planning committee, not the planning officer, will view the proposed development, relative to what is really on the site at the moment.

 

This is why I suggested that two models, one showing the existing site, with all the buildings present (even though some don't count as far as the planning officer is concerned) and the other showing the (hopefully!) less cluttered proposed development, with the larger house but no outbuildings.

 

The idea is to convince the planning committee that the proposal does not make the site look worse, or more over-developed, than it is at the moment, or even to show that it will look significantly better.

 

As an example, our site was heavily overgrown and had been used as a dumping ground for garden waste for years, before it was fenced in.  It was an eyesore, with trees, shrubs, brambles that were head high etc.  One of the planning committee members commented that by building on the site we would be getting rid of a village eyesore.  I think much the same argument could be made here, and suggest that it may be a mistake to focus too closely on the wording of this Policy 22 and its interpretation. 

 

The bottom line is that planning committee decisions are inevitably driven by a mix of personal politics and opinion, not planning regulations or policy.

[AliG]

The wording in the planning guidance is pretty cast iron. It's also pretty draconian.

 

You have a couple of choices, you can take it to the planning committee and see what happens. You say that other houses have been developed of larger size, can you look at them on the local planning website and see how they managed to do it, maybe it was before Policy 22 came into effect, it looks like it was probably only late 09/early 10.

 

If you fail at committee level you can also appeal. I am not sure how they would see what might be considered an unreasonable planning policy. I would guess that they go by it.

 

It does seem that there is no limit on the size of extensions, is there a way to incorporate the existing building into a new larger building?

 

It does look like they will give a PPS7 exclusion for a house of outstanding architectural merit, but I believe these are difficult and very expensive to achieve.

[Jml]

Worth also checking if there is a more recent update on the guidance, which might be more favourable!!!

[Jml]

1 hour ago, AliG said:

 

 

It does seem that there is no limit on the size of extensions, is there a way to incorporate the existing building into a new larger building?

 

Draw plans to maximise permitted development, including in the roof space and perhaps even get Permitted development certificate from council,  to size of new build,  if that not large enough, apply for planning to extend exsting house to area you want in new build.  Then submit new build plans arguing better designed, sustainable etc.  Bit long way round and may not work.

 

  Also worth checking design and access statements for other rebuild properties to see how they got around it as sure many will have tried.

[Jeremy Harris]

Also worth noting that it is supposed to be guidance.

 

As such, a planning committee can go against it if they wish, and it won't cause any significant issues for the planning officer, as it's easy for him/her to keep the record straight by just noting that the committee chose to not apply Policy 22 in as stringent a way as possible, as they took into account the relative impact of the proposed development versus what already existed on the site, and concluded that the proposed development was no less detrimental to the amenity of the area.

 

My guess is that if it does go through at the committee, then the planning officer will try and get his/her pound of flesh by withdrawing PD rights, though.