Permitted Development rejected because of L shaped house

Hmm, it’s all sounding rather convoluted, I still don’t follow exactly what you have applied for. Have you applied for a Certificate of Lawful Development? Or have you applied for Planning Permission and stated within your application that some of the works are PD? Or some other sequence of events?

Surely your architect was speaking with the planners during the application period? If there is some common ground then these things can be ironed out during the application period, rather than waiting for the inevitable rejection to pop through the door.

Pre-Apps are a waste of time for domestic extensions, for the exact reasons you have found, they can say one thing at Pre-App stage and then change their stance during the application period.

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It does sound a little convuluted I know, but there was some reason to our madness.

Basically, in order to try and obtain the maximum space we could on the rear extension, we could only achieve this via the temporary permitted development rules because under planning permission we we would have only got 3.5m. The PD application was only ever for the rear of the property so we were going to propose a two pronged approach, one PD and one planning for the front.

Since we've been told by the council to apply for everything under planning and they might grant it, only then to go back on their initial guidance, this has now stumped us.

To answer your question, we initially therefore put in a PD application which I think is the same as certificate of lawful development which is also where the neighbours were consulted because of the larger home notification scheme. When that was rejected we then put in a pre-application for planning.

We have since had a meeting with the council to discuss the pre-app and several other follow on calls my architect is expecting some further correspondence with the council today. I consider this to be the period of time my architect and the council planner are talking, that you refer to.

What I am trying to better understand however, the rejection points I wrote earlier and the Class A. How else can I achieve a wrap around 8m one side and 4m the other under PD i.e. in what circumstance. if I removed the balcony or if I had two ugly flank walls that dont meet and have a 2 inch gap as cjard mentions?
 
I know its a little hard to follow, but its really quite simple if you consider the fact that we want to do several things to the house, some of which should have fallen under PD and the rest under planning permission eg changes to frontal elevation.

- We tried to achieve the maximum space under PD only for the rear extension. That failed because we have an L shaped house.

- We were then told to do the extension under a full planning application along with the other front elevation changes, for which we were advised to do a pre-application first. The feedback from the pre-application has been negative and this week we have been advised to reduce the rear extension further, remove the proposed front dormer to the left of the house and reduce the size of portico and change the bay window design. The reason why we are having all these problems is because we had 3 different council officers giving us inconsistent advice.

I hope that's somewhat clearer.

But let me ask you a new question. If we went back to the PD route and decided we only wanted to do a 8m rear on the reception room and leave out the area behind the utility room or the void space, can the council still impose any conditions like no flat roof as they have said so for the pre-application? In other words, are our PD rights protected to allow us to do whatever we want within the size parameters or can they still dictate no flat roof?

Thanks.

 
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If we went back to the PD route and decided we only wanted to do a 8m rear on the reception room and leave out the area behind the utility room or the void space, can the council still impose any conditions like no flat roof as they have said so for the pre-application? In other words, are our PD rights protected to allow us to do whatever we want within the size parameters or can they still dictate no flat roof?
As long your revised rear extension meets the other criteria for permitted development, like having a similar finish to the rest of the house, and meeting the height requirements, I don't see why this wouldn't be permitted under the prior approval scheme, with a flat roof.

Cheers
Richard
 
Thanks Richard. But more specifically if the council can request that we don't go with a flat roof under planning permission could they say the same thing if we did it under PD?

When you say similar finish, if the house is mainly pebble dashed can we not propose exposed brick or smooth render for the extension?

Also is a PD application the same thing as a certificate of lawful development or whatever it is called?
 
Thanks Richard. But more specifically if the council can request that we don't go with a flat roof under planning permission could they say the same thing if we did it under PD?

When you say similar finish, if the house is mainly pebble dashed can we not propose exposed brick or smooth render for the extension?

Also is a PD application the same thing as a certificate of lawful development or whatever it is called?

See here for the answers to these questions:

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/100806_PDforhouseholders_TechnicalGuidance.pdf

Cheers
Richard
 
Thanks Richard. But more specifically if the council can request that we don't go with a flat roof under planning permission could they say the same thing if we did it under PD?

When you say similar finish, if the house is mainly pebble dashed can we not propose exposed brick or smooth render for the extension?

Also is a PD application the same thing as a certificate of lawful development or whatever it is called?

PD is planning permission given to you by central government. It's a set of parameters that, provided you build within them, you can turn round and say "parliament gave me permission to do this"

A CLD is a council's written confirmation that your works are compliant with the set of parameters, it is not a permission to do anything. It' is merely a statement from a government body that works youre doing comply with the permission you have already been granted as a home owning citizen of this country. What use is it then? Not much, other than as a way of shutting up any potential moaners (usually neighbours)

A planning permission is an authorised body's confirmation that you have permission to develop land in a particular way. It might be the council officer, committee, or planning inspectorate that grants such permission

Planning officers are not supposed to get emotionally involved in your project. Theyre supposed to be the arbiters of whather your proposals comply with council adopted development policy and national planning policy frameworks. They can throw in all sorts of stuff like "I like the round window, it adds character" but unless the adopted policy says "houses in this district must have a round window to add character" then it's personal and emotional involvement and would likely be defeated by appealing. Refusal reasons should give reference to which adopted policies the development contravenes - one of my schemes was cautioned for having too many parking spaces relative to the adopted policy recommendations

Don't try and mix PD and PP in the same development. Do them separately. Handing over a plan and saying "i want to put this massive extension on the back, can I have a CLD for it, and I want to put this porch on the front, can I have a PP for it" shows all your hand at once, shows the council things they don't need to know and gears them up to push you into the route of PP for the whole thing, or opportunities to find fault with the PP bit because they find the CLD bit objectionable (not that they have any right to refuse it - you already have that permission, but councils don't always agree with central govt's permissions for PD and will seize upon opportunities to sway your application)

Pre-app advice is nigh on worthless unless it contains a list of relevant local policies that you should read and consider. It will be chock full of personal feelings and as is clear ehre, the planner's attempt to design your scheme for you.. Which he'll then go back on because he can, and must because some of the input was completely irrelevant with respect to his job role. The best use I found for pre-app advice was in sounding out the foibles and vagaries of your particular officer (if you can guarantee it's that officer that will decide your scheme) - if you detect that he hates dormers, maybe leave the dormers to another time or put them in with a view to taking them out as a "meeting half way if he agrees to X" - again, getting emotionally involved and designing a scheme, not something they're supposed to do but if they're going to do it, and you're going to do it, you might as well seize any opportunities whereby doing it tit for tat will get you most of what you want, regardless of how correct it is with regard to local policy

Politics
 
Thanks I like that last explanation very much, very clear.

Does your answer then differ for the new temporary PD rules which allow for doubling of the extension limits and the requirement for neighbour consultation? The apocation form used to complete that - is that to be regarded as a certificate of lawful development. And irrespective of existing or temp PD rules, you need to submit full plans for these rather than just descriptive narrative?
 
Does your answer then differ for the new temporary PD rules which allow for doubling of the extension limits and the requirement for neighbour consultation?

No. "If extension depth between 4 and 8 metres then neighbour consultation scheme must be used and passed" is just one of the parameters to the permission I mentioned earlier. Central govt has permitted you to build an 8m extension if your neighbours are OK with it(or if the council decides their moaning is irrelevant)

The apocation form used to complete that - is that to be regarded as a certificate of lawful development. And irrespective of existing or temp PD rules, you need to submit full plans for these rather than just descriptive narrative?

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/neighbour_consultation_scheme_guidance_may13.pdf lists what you must do. A Site Plan would be somewhere between 1:200 and 1:500 and would essentially show the building outline. It wouldn't be a 1:50 scale 3D rendering of your finished house.

Least said, soonest mended. The LA will write, asking for more info, if they want your 3D rendering. Remember that they're solely deciding on impact on neighbouring amenity, nothing else. Your neighbours have already indicated theyre happy with your scheme so they won't write back, and the council either write you a letter saying go ahead, or 42 days later, you start building anyway
 
Can someone please point out to me where in the technical guidance it says that an L shaped house at the rear (like mine), that a wrap around extension (not the part which forms of the previous utility room extension) does not form part of permitted development.

I'm struggling to understand why I cannot do 8m from the void on the left side and 4m on the right (basically behind the red lines on the last diagram below). Where does it say that the L shaped wall must not touch each other (as some people are claiming that I can read elsewhere on the internet)?

I looked at page 16 on the technical guidance and I'm following the text on the disapproved diagram where you can go 8m to meet the furthest line, is this what is known as a wrap around extension or does a wraparound have to include a side extension to wrap to the rear?
 

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