Old school tricks? Worth it?

[Piers]

We're interviewing architects over the next few weeks with a view to getting one to design our replacement house in Hampshire. It really feels like we're starting to move forwards after taking the first year to get used to the plot.

 

We've had advice from a local planning consultant (ex-planning officer) who tells us the maximum size of the replacement house can be 150% of existing structure (PD route comes out the same size). We can count the garage as part of the existing structure IF it's within 5m of the house. It would give us an extra c. 50m2 for the new house. Annoyingly it's about 7m away. The consultant tells me that the PO are sticklers for the rules.

 

We haven't hired the land/topograpical surveyor yet. I've interviewed a few and they tell me their margin of error is about 20mm, not the 2000mm I was hoping for!!

 

A friend of mine has recommended me to an "old school" architect/consultant in Norfolk who, he says, is flexible on measurements and is an expert in fudging things to get through planning. His suggestion is to get this guy to push the enlarged space through planning (with a rough design) and potentially then go back with my preferred architect and amend plans but with the size principle already established.

 

We really do want the extra space. We know that if apply the correct way first and get rejected then we can't fudge it second time around.

 

What does everyone think? Try old school? Or stick to the straight and narrow?

 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

Welcome.

 

I am not particularly impressed by the firmness of the lines your Planning Consultant is drawing ... sounds a bit too much like a gamekeeper turned poacher who has forgotten he is not a gamekeeper. Has he internalised the idea that you are the client, and the Council are now the dark forest through which you will navigate with him as your native guide?

 

I don’t believe that planning guidelines are enforcible in such an uncompromisingly firm manner, and he should be explaining that the P.O. should be approving unless the balance of all the factors makes the development unacceptable in planning terms , and it is not always the P.O. who makes the decision.

 

On the garage you could potentially do something like a cheap 2.1m porch or similar under Permitted Development to make the gap 4.9m,in advance of going for PP, which may give you your extra space, or even extend under PD to the max. That should be bread and butter to a PC. You could get a dismantable and reusable porch for later if you put your mind to it.

 

Possibly I am being unjust here ... however we find it better to flag up Ideas firmly.

 

Don’t worry, and take time to collect the knowledge, the guidelines, and the large bag of tricks.

 

Try reading some of the blogs, which will convince you of the nebulosity of everything in planning. Perhaps read them like a book, one at a time at one sitting each. That way you get a lot of the stuff by osmosis while engaging with the stories.

 

Have a meeting with the Wise Owl consultant, and explore his attitude, then perhaps think carefully about changing horses. It is not so much tricks, as oodles of experience. 

 

F

Edited July 12, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Dudda]

Buy a crappy timber shed and stick it to the house side of the garage. Get it second hand a put a rusty lock on it. Do that now. It's going to take a few months to find an architect and agree on a design. Do the surveys, etc. When going for planning your garage and shed are now withing 5 meters and you'll probably be able to get 55-60sqm extra. ?

[Russell griffiths]

We went from 60m to 206m so I wouldn’t worry about size, there are far more parameters at play. 

 

I wouldnt worry about interviewing surveyors, pick the most local company as you will be able to call them out at short notice and they can pop in for a quick hour. 

 

This is what ours does, had them out three times now to plot various points on site that would be very hard to do with a tape. 

Full topo survey of a 1 acre site, 1100 points logged £800. 

 

Each site visit £70 an hour roughly 

[le-cerveau]

When you submit planning application do not have any dimension on it other than GIA.  Ours was over twice the volume of the old one, however as they did not have the volume of the old house, it was a moot point.  We basically used the original footprint, filled in some of the odd shapes with a bot of extra and went up to 2 floors.You can see from the site plan on my blog.

 

Only discussion was with the planning assistant who 'didn't like it' this was quashed by an e-mail from my architect to her boss.

[jack]

13 hours ago, Piers said:

We've had advice from a local planning consultant (ex-planning officer) who tells us the maximum size of the replacement house can be 150% of existing structure (PD route comes out the same size).

 

The 150% rule mainly applies in green belt and conservation areas, I believe. Are you in either of those? We replaced a ~90m² bungalow with a ~289m² house on a ~40% larger footprint, and it sailed through because it's a decent sized block and we were surrounded by much larger houses.

 

Other than that, the ideas above are good. I particularly like the idea of adding an extension to the garage. You could knock something up using second hand wood (check ebay) or by using an old shed. The main thing to make sure of is that it is added to the garage in such a way as to become part of the structure. Building a shed beside a garage is a lot more risky, imo. That said, planners very (very!) rarely do a site visit, so what they see sitting at their desk is what they'll make a decision on. Definitely room for some fudge in how you present the existing structures.

 

Also consider now whether there are any trees you'll want to remove or prune. Planning permission usually comes with a requirement that you not only not take down any trees, but take active (and sometimes expensive) measures to protect them.

[Jeremy Harris]

1 hour ago, le-cerveau said:

When you submit planning application do not have any dimension on it other than GIA.  Ours was over twice the volume of the old one, however as they did not have the volume of the old house, it was a moot point.  We basically used the original footprint, filled in some of the odd shapes with a bot of extra and went up to 2 floors.You can see from the site plan on my blog.

 

Only discussion was with the planning assistant who 'didn't like it' this was quashed by an e-mail from my architect to her boss.

 

 

Good tip.  I also wrote in big letters across the bottom of all my initial drawings "CAD GENERATED DRAWING - DO NOT SCALE".  The fact that the drawing prints I sent them were all pretty much spot on to a set scale was neither here nor there, my intention was to make it clear that they shouldn't just put a scale rule on the drawing and assume any unmarked dimension taken that way was valid.

[Piers]

 

6 hours ago, jack said:

The 150% rule mainly applies in green belt and conservation areas, I believe. Are you in either of those?

 

Yes, we're in the green belt and outside a settlement boundary.

7 hours ago, jack said:

Also consider now whether there are any trees you'll want to remove or prune.

 

Good advice. We've got a lot of chainsaw work ahead of us.

[jack]

If you're in a conservation area, check what your council's policy is on trees. They may automatically have TPO-type protections.

[Temp]

I think a "notification of tree works" is required for all trees in a conservation area (if the trunk diameter is over 75mm).

[Temp]

Here you go...

https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200126/applications/60/consent_types/14

[Piers]

Unbelievable Jeff!! So we had a first meeting with an architect. Told him our ideas and budget. Even shared with him our sketches of floorplans we'd done. He said he'd quote - see below.

 

Just to remove any doubt, we're not footballers building some monster pad with a crazy budget. It's a 4-5 bed detached house plus garage/workshop

 

To paraphrase Michael Caine, I'm inclined to think my own bad design is going to be cheaper than some architect's. 

 

 

 

[Alexphd1]

Speechless...... 

[newhome]

OMG that’s crazy! I’m not sure what construction method you are using but we had a basic design in mind and the timber frame company did all of the plans, SE calcs and certificates and provided the actual frame for a lot less than that! 

 

 

[newhome]

Still you have to hand it to the guy, 2 jobs like that and he gets to spend the rest of the time on the golf course or whatever. Someone must pay or he wouldn’t be in business. 

[Piers]

One thing that amused/infuriated me is that he was proposing that our planning consultant would do the planning submission and liaise with the LA. You'd have thought for £15k he would take on some form filling. 

[MikeSharp01]

We got all the way through to stage 4 with our RIBA architects for around £14K. I get the feeling that they base their fee on your budget - seeking to charge a specific % of it. If you go to another one tell them the build budget is tiny and see what happens to the fee. I have been very happy with our architect - we love the design, although in places they have been a little scrappy with details, the overall experience was very positive.

[jack]

JFC, that's hilarious (not for you, obviously!)

 

Is this a "name" architect? 

[joe90]

Like wise I am speechless but I did all that myself for ours, so I am underpaid.

[CC45]

thats 2/3 years gross salary for a lot of people.  Would it add that amount to the house?

 

Our professional fees have come to £4,496 so far - this excl plot purchase fees but includes all designs, planning, building control, drainage design etc  About £18/m2.

[jack]

Think about it on a time basis. Figure out how many hours this person could possibly be spending on the work, then divide the estimate accordingly. 

 

At a rough guess, they seem to be expecting hundreds of quid an hour for at least some of this. Unless he/she is a serious name architect, that's taking the mick.

 

£2,500 per month for onsite tech support - I'll bet that's a retainer, too, in which case if you don't use it you still pay. Even at £100/hr, say, can you see an architect spending 25 hours per month acting as a technical consultant? If the job is done properly in the first place, there should be very little left to consult on I'd have thought. The odd phone call here and there to check a detail perhaps, but that's about it.

[Piers]

32 minutes ago, jack said:

JFC, that's hilarious (not for you, obviously!)

 

Is this a "name" architect? 

 

I have a name for him but it probably wouldn't pass censors!

[Mr Punter]

We have just paid similar fees on a project with a build cost around £2.5m and final value of £6m.  I think the quote is out by a factor greater than 4.

[PeterW]

What’s an architect ..?? Did plans and BRegs submission all in Visio along with calcs for steels ... £50....

[Jeremy Harris]

11 minutes ago, PeterW said:

What’s an architect ..?? Did plans and BRegs submission all in Visio along with calcs for steels ... £50....

 

 

I agree. I did all my own plans, planning application, building regs submission etc, never having done it before, and didn't find it that hard.  If it saved me as much money as quoted above then I'm well chuffed - it might just have pushed my average hourly rate on the build closer to the national minimum wage...