Thread: Brisbane - Neighbour's estate is opposing my shed DA.

Good Morning Pearo

I think that there are two issues with what you are trying to do:

FIRST: Why do you want a 600 mm gap between your shed and the fence - it is too narrow to be useful and will just collect garbage. Why not put a parapet wall on the boundary and make the shed 600 mm bigger !

SECOND: You cannot afford not to employ a townplanner to advise you and argue your case. Without professional advice you will get lost in the fine print, and almost inevitably you will get shafted. Not nice, but neither is your neighbour!

Best of luck, and perseverance.



Fair Winds

Graeme

My first thought before reading it all was with Graeme has said .... why not build to the boundary.


A number of good ideas above, take a pinch of this and a dash of that and you'll have a great concoction


Dave the turning cowboy

turning wood into art

This "idea" is pretty nasty, but I lived in Mosman for 8 years and Neutral Bay for 12 more.

When these kinds of things became nasty, which was EVERY time, they planted Giant Bamboo.

The stuff grows like lightning and doesn't spread like crazy. So, you have an instant 6 metre tall wall you cant see through.

Put it between the fence and the garage.

I haven't seen any photos of your scenario, but I was discussing with a neighbour about the idea of extending his own brick garage (its on the boundary and I use his "wall") to make a wall the length of the yard.... like a roman villa. He get his garage and I get a nice long wall to plant things against. Its a very popular trend in the posh suburb of Deakin here (where the blocks are smaller, but the people more enlightened)

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Good Morning Pearo

I think that there are two issues with what you are trying to do:

FIRST: Why do you want a 600 mm gap between your shed and the fence - it is too narrow to be useful and will just collect garbage. Why not put a parapet wall on the boundary and make the shed 600 mm bigger !

SECOND: You cannot afford not to employ a townplanner to advise you and argue your case. Without professional advice you will get lost in the fine print, and almost inevitably you will get shafted. Not nice, but neither is your neighbour!

Best of luck, and perseverance.



Fair Winds

Graeme

chasing a 200mm relaxation, not 600, so essentially on the boundary.

Will see what brisbane city council says then will engage the services of a town planner and lawyer if I have too.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by Pearo

chasing a 200mm relaxation, not 600, so essentially on the boundary.

Will see what brisbane city council says then will engage the services of a town planner and lawyer if I have too.

Sorry Pearo, but I think that you are adopting an extremely high risk strategy.

Here, in Hobart, the offset rule is 1200 mm or you can build on the boundary. It is virtually impossible to get planning approval to build within that 1200 mm envelope. If you build on the boundary then the parapet wall must be masonry or concrete - high fire barrier and zero maintenance. The 1200 mm offset distance is probably related to fire considerations (educated guess). I would suggest that it might be easier to get approval for a parapet wall than a 200 mm offset, and to the mutual advantage of you and your neighbour, as Evanism suggests.

If you wait for the council to make a decision before you employ a town planner, then you are effectively placing yourself in the position of an appellant. It is much easier (and far cheaper) to get an approval than to win an appeal. Respectfully, I strongly urge you to hire a town planner immediately. You will not need a lawyer until the town planner advises you so - perhaps never.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you appear to be the victim of professional ars**holes, and they are not obliged to tell you what you do not know. They are professional developers, you are not. For example, have you a copy of the Town Planning Byelaws for your area, and have you studied them in depth? They manipulate those rules consistently. And they are on a first-names basis with all/most of the planners at council. Its their job!



Fair Winds

Graeme

Originally Posted by Evanism

..... I haven't seen any photos of your scenario, but I was discussing with a neighbour about the idea of extending his own brick garage (its on the boundary and I use his "wall") to make a wall the length of the yard.... like a roman villa. He get his garage and I get a nice long wall to plant things against. Its a very popular trend in the posh suburb of Deakin here (where the blocks are smaller, but the people more enlightened) .....

Good Morning, Evanism

Really good friend had the reverse experience to you. Probably because his neighbour who we will call Yaro was an incessant appelant - appealed every development application in a ten block radius - a constant whiner, an a first class PIA.

Baz wanted to build a parapet wall on their mutual boundary. Yaro did not object to the development application, approval was given, then Yaro asked the council to review the decision (like a low level appeal) - he lost. Yaro then appealed formally to the Resource Management and Planning Appeals Tribunal - he lost and had costs awarded against himself. Yaro then appealed to the ( state) Supreme Court. Amongst the reasons for his appeal Yaro stated that the development would overshadow his house. JUDGE: Tell me, Mr (Yaro), at what time of the day will you be overshadowed? YARO: In the early morning. JUDGE: So the sun will rise in the west! Yaro again lost and again had costs awarded against him. The building process started, but the dramatics continued.

Yaro would not allow the builders access to his property to build the parapet wall; he inspected progress continually (3, 4 or 5 times a day), complained obsessively if the minutest speck of building rubble (eg splashed mortor) landed on his garden; he would not allow access to clean up such "problems", etc. Had to be done with tin cans on sticks! A right, royal PIA. The brickies were basically forced to suspend a length of box guttering along the parapet wall in progress, plus a canvass screen, all to catch any spillage from the bricklaying process. This had to be adjusted every two or three rows of brickwork. Adjustments had to be done from above, as they were still not allowed access to Yaro's property.

The builders and brickies were most unimpressed by Yaro. But they had the last laugh. It was "too difficult" to clean up the mortor and point the joints from above, so they did not do it. It was left as a brick wall with unsmoothed mortor hanging out. Totally invisible from Baz's house or from the street, but highly visible from Yaro's kitchen, dining room and family room.

Twenty years later, my friend has moved on but Yaro can still admire that unfinished wall and the results of his recalcitrance.



Fair Winds

Graeme

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Sorry Pearo, but I think that you are adopting an extremely high risk strategy.

Here, in Hobart, the offset rule is 1200 mm or you can build on the boundary. It is virtually impossible to get planning approval to build within that 1200 mm envelope. If you build on the boundary then the parapet wall must be masonry or concrete - high fire barrier and zero maintenance. The 1200 mm offset distance is probably related to fire considerations (educated guess). I would suggest that it might be easier to get approval for a parapet wall than a 200 mm offset, and to the mutual advantage of you and your neighbour, as Evanism suggests.

If you wait for the council to make a decision before you employ a town planner, then you are effectively placing yourself in the position of an appellant. It is much easier (and far cheaper) to get an approval than to win an appeal. Respectfully, I strongly urge you to hire a town planner immediately. You will not need a lawyer until the town planner advises you so - perhaps never.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you appear to be the victim of professional ars**holes, and they are not obliged to tell you what you do not know. They are professional developers, you are not. For example, have you a copy of the Town Planning Byelaws for your area, and have you studied them in depth? They manipulate those rules consistently. And they are on a first-names basis with all/most of the planners at council. Its their job!



Fair Winds

Graeme

The 200mm setback is needed as I have sloping block and I have to cut and fill.

Its a fairly straight foward process here in Brisbane now. At this point, there is no need for a town planner as the development is what they call "self assesable". This means I do not need to get approval from the council to build. I do however need to get approval for the siting variation. I guess my title is a little misleading, because they neighbour is not opposing my DA (i dont need one) but rather attempting to oppose my siting variation.

Also, there is no requirement for me to have a fireproof wall, even on the boundary. There is no house on the other side where I am building the shed and the shed is not between a dwelling and the boundary on my side of the property.

All said and done, if I move the shed out to 750mm I dont need a siting variation and then I can tell the neighbour to get stuffed. The current rules as I understand it for my block require a setback of 1000mm (I have 1500 on the plan so I can install a dusty between the fence and the shed) and 750mm setback from the side boundary.

As I was saying earlier, it's not about town planners and council. It is about how the private certifier apply the bylaws and regulations. Find an agreeable certifier, build, have it ticked off, done. If the neighbour is planning to develop the block they will need to engage at a higher level. If you beat them to the punch then the ball is in your court. They will then need to design THEIR development with the approved surrounding in mind.

I don't necessarily agree with the process, however, it is in your interest to make the process work for you.

I don't really understand why a cut and fill requirement makes any difference to whether or not the shed is on boundary. Me, I would put it on boundary and incorporate a firewall into the design. Mine is 2 x 16mm fyrecheck with corro on the exterior. Not that expensive and works well for sound attenuation as well. The only reason I can think of for the 200mm setback is to accommodate a gutter on that side of the shed, solution = a scillion building with only one pitch.

To each their own.

Cheers
Bevan

Well this has turned interesting, and I am not sure if its good or bad. Where I live (shorncliffe), all the neighbors on the block are fairly chatty and are opposed to the destruction of the streetscape wrt to the existing buildings.

The reason the direct neighbour (estate) is opposing my siting variation is because they want to demolish the houses next to me (I have 2 street frontage) so they can develop. So I mentioned this to the neighbour on the other side in passing cause I was off.

Now, the only reason I found out about the request to demolish was because they opposed my siting variation. Other neighbour has researched the house and found it was built prior to 1947 which makes it hard to demolish. He has also found the house was the first in brisbane to be constructed using that method (the predecessor to besser block, and required a court case to allow this type of construction). So other neighbour has started a full on assault to oppose the demolition, and not only that, but he has basically pulled in most of the other people on the street to submit opposition to council as a well. He mentioned tonight that they have successfully stopped a demolition of another house a few doors up. They are also submitting to both local and state for heritage listing so the property cannot ever be demolished.

So there you go. If the neighbours estate had not opposed my siting variation I would have been none the wiser and the house next door would be gone soon. Now it seems I have accidentally started a war between them and the rest of the street. I still dont know if this is a good or bad thing.

MMMMM this sounds interesting, I wonder where this will end up, probably in the Supreme Court, opposing the council order. By the time lawyers, etc. get their fees, he might end up with $5.00 in his pocket, not the $500,000 they was hoping for
Kryn

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

MMMMM this sounds interesting, I wonder where this will end up, probably in the Supreme Court, opposing the council order. By the time lawyers, etc. get their fees, he might end up with $5.00 in his pocket, not the $500,000 they was hoping for
Kryn

I happen to know the son-in-law of the owner of the last house they opposed the demolition of. The owner of that house is a lawyer and he lost after spending a substantial amount of money in legal fees.

Pearo, it's Christmas for you! Santa may bring a shed

Have a chat with the bastard and see what he thinks of your shed idea now. Sidle up to him like you're his best mate!

What a development.

Neigbours demolition submission has been refused by Council! I still dont have a shed, but its nice to know I helped contribute to the refusal of demolition! IF only he had just signed off on the neighbour statement then we would not have made any submissions showing the houses were built prior to 1947!