Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 7Jun 10, 2011 9:23 am Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 9Jun 10, 2011 10:04 am "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 10Jun 10, 2011 12:04 pm Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 11Jun 10, 2011 12:23 pm Budde Design 3D Architecural Visualizations, Architectural Rendering, Artist Impressions, 2D & 3D floor plans http://www.buddedesign.com nathan@buddedesign.com Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 13Jun 10, 2011 1:47 pm 3timesbuilda Move the front door to the back of the house, that should really stump them "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 15Jun 10, 2011 7:06 pm 3timesbuilda Move the front door to the back of the house, that should really stump them 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. Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 16Jun 10, 2011 8:00 pm nathanbudde 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. 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. Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 17Jul 06, 2011 3:39 pm 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 Breece Gevaux Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 18Jul 06, 2011 8:03 pm 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. Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 19Jul 06, 2011 10:38 pm Breece 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 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! Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Re: Can council demand extra set-back on corner block? 20Jul 06, 2011 11:21 pm cmhamilton 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). 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! cmhamilton 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. 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. cmhamilton 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). 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. cmhamilton 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. 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. cmhamilton 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. 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! Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52680 SiteStart 19/11/11 Slab 10/12/11 Frame 17/02/12 Roof 3/05/12 LockUp 22/06/12 Handover 31/08/12 Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. We definitely wish to settle and get these people out of our life. They are trying to charge us interest on late… 7 14262 4 14278 Dear all, Requesting your help in relation to a CDC code. We are building a new home in NSW on a corner lot (500m2, 15m wide) following Greenfield CDC code. Our design… 0 4784 |