Can council demand extra set-back on corner block?

Hi everyone.

We are having some issues with council. We are planning a custom design on a corner block. Plans have gone to council and we received a letter telling us that:

"Residential zone Principle of Development Control 3 states 'buildings should be set-back a minimum of 8 metres from the front allotment boundary and 1.5 metres from both side boundaries'. As the proposal currently stands the dwelling is oriented towards the middle of the two street frontages. Given that the dwelling does not have a clear frontage to either street, an additional setback from 2nd Street should be provided, and reflected in amended plans. Please note, in this circumstance planning staff would be happy to support a setback from 2nd Street of 6 metres given the provisions in the current Development Plan."

This is how our house was proposed. The rectangle with the P denotes the portico and main entrance door:



I have spoken to council and was told that according to their interpretation, the orientation of the front door defines the main frontage. Supposedly, as our front door is not clearly oriented towards either street, they can't identify which side of the house is the main frontage and therefore both sides need to abide by the full 'main frontage set-back'.

I am not happy about this as I don't understand where they are coming from. In my opinion our main frontage is towards 1st street. The driveway and garage are coming off 1st street and the living areas are in the wing along 1st street. Therefore the frontage to 2nd street is a secondary side of the house and according to the development plan would only need a set-back of 2.5m.
There is nothing in the development plan that says how a main frontage is defined (e.g. that the orientation of the front door is important) and nowhere does it say that if a main frontage is not immediately obvious that extra set-backs have to be obeyed on a corner block.

What do you think. Is council right to demand the extra set-back or do I have a case to dispute their decision?

Any opinion or advice welcome.

Can the council. Go through a private surveyor.

What street is the address for your house on, street 1 on street 2, wouldn't that be the main frontage street?

I think they are having trouble be because if the location of the door/portico being right on the corner (I actually thought it was on the second street). I think what they usually see is the door flat on either side and nit on the corner and hence why they are saying it's on both sides.

Unfortunately yes I think they can say you need the set backs but I'm not 100% sure

You may be able to apply for a dispensation to build within the setback requirement. Are you applying for the permit yourself or is your builder doing it for you? If you have a builder get them to apply for the permit - otherwise hire someone to do it for you as they will know all the necessary steps to get it done.

Good Luck!

The longer set back is designed so you can hold a car on the drive way. You don't need a large set back on the other side. Its a complete waste of space. As long as you have shown that you have integrated the house nicely into the street and that cars can see around the corners then there is no issue.
The council are just playing it safe as they don't know what to do.

Person the way you have designed the house is perfect for the block and has much more street appeal than anything else.

Thank you everyone for your input.



There is no street address asigned yet. The Lot address is on 2nd street. But before we started the design and planning of the house I spoke to council and was told that as long as the required set-backs are adhered to, we can choose which side we want to direct the house to.




Yes, that is exactly their problem. And usually the front door will point straight at the street, because if it is not a corner block there is no other option really. And any 'normal' house design from builders will have the entrance clearly on one side of the house. But we wanted to achieve a number of things with our house design and have ended up with the entrance in the corner as the best option. While I can see that this is unusual and makes it a bit harder to use the 'front door direction = main frontage' criteria I don't understand why then both sides become main frontages. Moving the house back an extra 3m is wasting a lot of space and I lose a lot of room in the backyard, which I have other plans for by the way.




The council applications go through our builder. But it seems they are a bit stumped by this as well. Their recommendation was to talk to a town planner and get them involved in the dispute process. I will have to find out how to apply for a dispensation. The thing is though that I still think that we are complying with all the set-back requirements as set out in the development plan (8m from main frontage and 2.5m from secondary frontage). The problem is councils interpretation that both sides of the house are main frontages.




Thank you. I completely agree with you. Because this is a bit of a different design to what you would usually see, council seems a bit stumped as to what to do with it. But I don't agree with wasting ~80m² of my land just because council wants to play it safe.

Part of the whole design idea was to use the corner location to its full advantage and present a nice house to both streets. Now it feels like we are getting punished for it. Unfortunately it seems council is unmovable. They say we have two options: 1) move the house 3m back or 2) redesign it so the front door clearly points to 1st street. Neither of which is really an option as far as I am concerned.

Which council are you with. I would raise it at your next council meeting. Get signatures of your next door neighbors, agreeing with the proposal, and then submit it for discussion.

It does seem silly for them to say the direction of the front door determines the street frontage. There are heaps of houses on regular non-corner blocks with the front door not facing the street, ie on the side of the house. There is no question on the frontage of the house on those blocks though!

I think we will push it into the "Development Assessment Panel", which is a supposedly independent group (i.e. not the planning section in council that looks at the applications when they are first submitted) that deals with disputes like this. Getting some support for the proposal from neighbours might be a good idea, although it is a little bit difficult as we don't have many neighbours yet and it might be hard to track down the owners of the vacant blocks around us. Hopefully the Development Assessment Panel will be a little bit more open to discussions.




You are right, I don't think that the orientation of the front door is a good and sole indicator for the main frontage. What about houses that have their entrance on the side of the house? This problem is also very specific, because it can only occur on a corner block and therefore there are no clear rules that apply to this specific case. That is why I don't understand that council is so stubborn in their assessment and doesn't even want to discuss this with us and try to come to an amicable solution. I don't understand why it matters that the main frontage is clearly identifiable by the front door, as long as we comply with all the required set-backs and other regulations, which we do. There are other ways in which we could make it clear that the 1st street frontage is more obvious as being the main frontage, like landscaping.

If I was you I would definatly apply for a dispensation ASAP. Your builder can help you through this process, basically the dispensation is submitted to the planning department for their review and when dispensations are involved they require signatures from you neighbours that they to not object to the proposal.

Some councils may work it differently by the ones that I have delt with all have this procedure.

Move the front door to the back of the house, that should really stump them

Sounds like a case of bureaucracy gone wrong. Applying for dispensation might be the least stressful way to deal with it. Hope it works out for you.

Funny you should say that. That is actually one of the solutions we are looking at. Take out the front door and the portico and replace it with a wall or nice big window. There is a secondary entrance to the back of the 2nd street wing (as a back entrance for the kids to get out to the backyard or when they get older and come home late at night). And we could put in a door on the side of the garage. Then we wouldn't have a front entrance at all. I wonder if that means we could move further up to both streets as there is no main frontage set back to be adhered by.

OK, I will have to look into that and see how best to do that. At this stage I'm going to try anything to get some sensible outcome to this.

Thanks everyone for your advice and help. It's good to see that you all think that council has got this slightly wrong. Hopefully they can come around and we can get a better outcome for this.

Hey team,
The Street Setback controls in Victoria differ slightly from other areas of Australia.
In this site specific context, Clause 54.03-1 Street Setback Objective applies. (If there are two or more dwellings proposed, it falls under Clause 55.03-1). Best to talk to a town planner or your Architect early in the process.

The specific controls read as follows:
Corner site
If there is a building on the abutting allotment facing the front street, the same distance as the setback of the front wall of the existing building on the abutting allotment facing the front street or 9 metres, whichever is the lesser.

If there is no building on the abutting allotment facing the front street, 6 metres for streets in a Road Zone, Category 1, and 4 metres for other streets.
The same distance as the setback of the front wall of any existing building on the abutting allotment facing the side street or 2 metres, whichever is the lesser.

All the best,
Breece

The argument that houses don't always have doors directly facing the street on non-corner blocks is irrelevant because the access to the front of the house (the garage and front door) is still from the front of the block and the secondary frontage is nearly always fenced off for such houses on corner blocks - I suspect this is why some developers/councils stipulate that only house designs with doors facing the street frontage will be accepted, not because it's difficult to enforce but because they don't want to go through the fun and games of a VCAT tribunal hearing (which they'll end up winning nearly every time anyway due to the principle of Caveat emptor).

For the record the cut-in on the corner of the block is generally not counted as part of the front of the block for setback purposes, so if you "slice" the section of the block off front the end of the cut-in on the second street all the way along parallel to the 1st street then that gives you your frontage for the second street which your entrance is definitely facing regardless of the direction it is pointing in.

Here is a rather crude illustration (done in paint) depicting the possible frontage lines for your block and where your entrance is sited:



(it's not perfect but you can get the general gist from it anyway)

No matter which "perpendicular" side of the block you measure the frontage for the second street against it is pretty clear your entrance is on that "side" and that is why the council is treating the 2nd street as frontage as well, meaning that your house will have to have (as a minimum) the same setback as houses abutting it on the second street.

I've read and heard many stories where councils stand their ground on may more uncertain-looking situations, so when yours looks a bit more black and white I doubt you'll have much luck unless you can obtain a special dispensation (which requires the approval of the planner and your neighbours on the second street).

The only thing I can think of that might help your case is if the portion of the house from the entrance down along on the line of 2nd street is going to be fenced off - if so then you might have a case for that side being the secondary frontage, but if not then your house is effectively double fronted and you'll probably have to abide by their decision.

p.s. welcome to building on irregular corner blocks - I feel your pain as we had own own (albeit not quite as dicey) issues with the siting of our house with regards to the secondary frontage...

p.p.s. very nice looking block by the way.

Thank you for your comment Breece. However, the block is in South Australia and as you write yourself, different setback rules apply.

According to the discussions I and the town planner we have employed have had with Council, Council's issue is solely that the front door is not clearly facing either street and therefore no clearly identifiable main frontage exists. This assessment is only based on the orientation of the front door. Other aspects like landscaping, fencing, use of the area, access to the house etc. are not relevant according to them.

There has also not been any mention of buildings and setbacks on abutting allotments. In fact Council has told us that if we had the door facing clearly towards 1st Street, they would have absolutely no problem approving the house as it is, in the position it is, with the setbacks as proposed!

I agree with this. The reason I have pointed this out is because of what the Council has told both me and the town planner we have employed to deal with this. According to that, the main defining factor of the main frontage of the house is the orientation of the front door. Quite clearly this is not the case as there are plenty of houses within the council area that do not have their front door pointing towards their main frontage, be it on a corner or non-corner block!




Again, I agree with you. But the question is not if the 1st street frontage or the 2nd street frontage should be the main frontage. The problem is the stupid interpretation of Council that supposedly they cannot identify which one is the main frontage (because the main entrance supposedly is not directed to either of the streets) and therefore both frontages have to have the main frontage setback. In fact they then allow us to have a lesser setback from 2nd street, although their reasoning for that is not entirely clear to either us or our town planner.




Council is definitely standing their ground and there is no option of a special dispensation. The matter has now been referred to the Council Development Assessment Panel (CDAP), a supposedly independent Panel that makes decisions in cases where there is a dispute.




This is actually what we have planned. There is about a 1.5m to 2m drop from the street level of 2nd Street to the proposed floor level of the house, while there is only a slight slope with a drop of about 0.5m from 1st Street. This is a big part of why we decided to have 1st Street as our main frontage and why we have the garage towards 1st Street. As part of our landscaping there will be a retaining wall along the whole frontage of 2nd Street and we plan to put a fence up along that side as well. So based on landscaping and fencing it would be fairly clear that the 2nd Street frontage of the house would be a secondary frontage.





Yeah, it was something we didn't expect to be such a major drama. But we had been pre-warned that the Council is renowned to be difficult and it certainly has proven to be the case. We will see what the CDAP decision will be and what the proper justification for their decision will be. Because so far we have not had a proper explanation other than the passage of the letter I have quoted in my original post.

We will see what happens. If all else fails we will need to redesign the house. Moving the house back those 3m is simply not an option as it completely destroys our other plans of what we want to do with our block!