Setting precedent for terrace planning permission

stef_b

Hello everyone,
I'm a newbie to the forum and hope that someone will have some advice on this!

My problem is the following:

I live in a top floor Victorian terraced maisonette and I have the share of the freehold. All of the rear part of the property is flat roof and we would like create a small terrace only on the end of the extension. We have taken our neighbours' privacy into considerations when planning this small terrace which will be well sheltered from view and set half a meter back from the edge, so not interfere with anyone around us. We have already met a council planning officer with our idea and he made us aware about the fact that Haringey council (london) has a very strict policy about terraces of any kind and planning permission will be very difficult to achieve.
The thing is, our neighbours opposite have a good size terrace right at the back of their property overlooking us and everyone else's gardens and properties and we were unable to find any evidence of planning permission as such. However it has definitely been there for well over the 4 years required time for retrospective planning.

My point is will their terrace be classifiable as a precedent for future planning or if not, how much can I use them as an example in arguing my case to create my terrace.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated Thanx
Stef

eddddy

Over the years, I've had conflicting advice from different planning officers on 'precedents'. One told me that I was unlikely to get consent for a driveway, because it would set a precedent for all the other houses in the road to have similar driveways.

But another planning officer told me that a precedent was not a significant factor in allowing planning consents (in this case, it was about building a new house in a back garden - if one person gets permission, it doesn't mean everyone else will.)

Regarding your proposed terrace - I'm not sure that the 'precedent' argument will help you too much. The neighbours terrace has been there over 4 years, so it may have been built before Haringey introduced their strict policy on terraces. Things may have been allowable under planning rules 5, 10, 20 or 100 years ago, but you can't really claim that as a precedent for allowing the same thing today.

If the neighbours didn't apply for planning consent, they may have 'got away with it', but I don't think that will be regarded as a precedent. If it was, once one person gets away with building some kind of monstrosity without consent, it would mean that everyone else in the country could as well.

And realistically, planning departments make mistakes. They sometimes allow things that they quite obviously shouldn't have. It would make matters worse, if the planning department was forced to allow others to copy the 'mistake' because of a 'precedent' rule.

Ulfar

Won't there also be an issue with the owner of the leasehold for the part of the property that has the flat roof. You will need their permission to build on their property and their mortgage company may want a say as well.

In addition to this quite often a single storey extension will get planning permission but a two storey one won't and the planning office will make it quite clear that any further development to change from single storey to two storey will be turned down.

I don't think the precedence argument will get you anywhere when you are trying to use a property where they didn't ask for permission and have got away with it, in fact it would probably go against you as it will annoy the planning department.

I would expect them to be looking into it and even if 4 years have passed to be sending round the building inspectors because there is no time limit on extensions that don't meet the standards.

stef_b

Thank you for the speedy and very helpful advice

I guess we'll have to put it through planning and see where it gets us. The planning officer did say we have a 50/50 chance, if you don't try you don't get...!
stef