The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

I wanted to buy next door when it was for sale recently and build a house at the end of both gardens but despite meeting the letter of the law on planning my architect felt it would fall foul of the general rule of 'out of keeping for area':(

Age really planners are not keen on back garden developments.

Please stop moaning about the weather, it 33 degrees here with 37 forecast for tomorrow!

zagubov

I used to work in one of the highest-value towns in Surrey. There were several cases where developers had bought up a large house and garden and converted it into a little close with at least half a dozen two-bed terraces.

While the houses are all tiny they're well-designed and use the land efficiently.

I'd do what the Dutch did and tax houses by their width.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

....build a house at the end of both gardens ...

This plot had the longside entirely alongside the public footpath, so the majority of houses are street-facing. None of it's "end of both gardens" in that sense.

I should imagine that the two demolished dwellings that became the new build development, sold for £400k apiece. I did try to "find out" without spending any time/effort in doing so, and that's a figure google searches indicated was about right... although I was never "interested enough" to dig and find out the actual amounts; I was interested enough if I googled and out popped the figures, but that was it. Idle curiosity.

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

I used to work in one of the highest-value towns in Surrey. There were several cases where developers had bought up a large house and garden and converted it into a little close with at least half a dozen two-bed terraces.

While the houses are all tiny they're well-designed and use the land efficiently.

IMHO it's these "little close" things that are the bane of my life... unless in your experience they had their own driveway each - that used to be "the norm", but if you remove all that space and clump "allocated parking" onto the plot you can squeeze more houses in these days.

Allocated parking, as space, is a right nuisance as you can never "throw open your car doors and sort the car out", or load/unload awkward loads etc. They work based on you just arriving/parking and then leaving again.

When you're a car owner you get up to all sorts of things in a driveway you don't even think about ... like cleaning it out, looking for things you might've lost, loading up and unloading large purchases or tip runs. You also might be doing "bizarre" things in the car, like measuring the interior to see if something will fit or whatnot... without looking odd to neighbours. If you're in your own driveway you look "less odd" if you're doing things in/around the car and you have the room to lay things down alongside it while you faff around in the car.

Simply "opening all the car doors intending to vaccum it out, having a bag for the rubbish alongside and the vacuum cleaner ... then leaving it there for 10 minutes because the phone rang" can't be done at all.

I would say, though, that a few spots are amenable to some of these activities, in part. I've got what I'd call "a good spot/slot" with my house (adjacent, end spot, right by my gate), but even so it's a faff to do all the things one could want to when one wants to...

And, all the houses are "disabled friendly" with their wide doors and flat thresholds... but a disabled person couldn't use the parking to park. Anybody with mobility issues that needs to open the door wide just to get in/out couldn't open the door wide ever... so it's all a bit annoying. You JUST have enough room to open the doors "a bit" and slide out, like in supermarkets.

PasturesNew

I had some half-4rsed plans/ideas for today. I was going to get up early and go out car booting, on a round robin .... but I feel utterly awful. This snotty cold's gone all chesty/phlegmy and it's just draining me.

I can't risk driving, especially in this area where thousands of people who "don't really know where they're going" are on the roads, with me who has a "vague idea it's over here, but not sure how this next junction works out until I see it". Too risky for me to be a little too fuzzy-headed/inattentive to be driving.

Still alive though. That's one bonus point right there!

vivatifosi

Re parking, I disagree that people need a drive. It's more about ample capacity, and the problem with many newer estates is that's not planned in. Where I live parking is not allocated. However there are also two spaces and a garage per house.

When there's good capacity and a nice, wide layout, you don't see parking issues as you do elsewhere. However I doubt that houses would be built like this now. As with where Pastures lives, they'd try to squeeze in extra houses for more profit.

GDB2222

vivatifosi wrote: »

Re parking, I disagree that people need a drive. It's more about ample capacity, and the problem with many newer estates is that's not planned in. Where I live parking is not allocated. However there are also two spaces and a garage per house.

When there's good capacity and a nice, wide layout, you don't see parking issues as you do elsewhere. However I doubt that houses would be built like this now. As with where Pastures lives, they'd try to squeeze in extra houses for more profit.

There used to be planning rules on the maximum number of houses per acre. It was implemented round here as maximum number of habitable rooms per acre. So, you'd get spacious estates because that's all that could be built.

That's all changed, with councils under pressure to maximise the number of homes built.

Building on infill sites was discouraged, but now it's encouraged.

Jackmydad

Pyxis wrote: »

It does depend, though.

My first house was probably interwar, and had a 100' ft rear garden, with a small front garden, only big enough for a car if sideways on.

My current one is late Victorian and has a 30', almost square, rear garden. The front garden does fit a standard sized car pulling straight off the road, though, and a wee bit more.
All the Victorian houses in this area have similarly smallish gardens for the age of the house.


In Brighton,though, a lot of the older houses don't have gardens as such, but small yards. I looked at a lot a long time ago, and was shocked by it! Tiny spaces!

That might be because they were built to be second homes for affluent Londoners.

They were. They just didn't realise it at the time.:D

Lots of fishing villages in the South West like that with just back yards for the original properties.
Apparently Cornwall has started to ban second home buying in some of those villages.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had some half-4rsed plans/ideas for today. I was going to get up early and go out car booting, on a round robin .... but I feel utterly awful. This snotty cold's gone all chesty/phlegmy and it's just draining me.

I can't risk driving, especially in this area where thousands of people who "don't really know where they're going" are on the roads, with me who has a "vague idea it's over here, but not sure how this next junction works out until I see it". Too risky for me to be a little too fuzzy-headed/inattentive to be driving.

Still alive though. That's one bonus point right there!

Good thinking, Pastures.
Mine went to my chest, too.
Have had it over a week now, wretched thing.

Meaning to do some paperwork for AmDram today, but can't get motivated...... t's turning very muggy, so might need to unearth the aircon machine, otherwise the brain won't work at all.
I do need to do the paperwork though, as am presenting it to the troupe in a couple of days.

I do hope we get some of the thunderstorms that have been predicted....... it is getting muggy enough.

Jackmydad

They're not going to be happy, until we're living seven deep, and the roads are one big car park.
Just what are the roads for? getting from one place to another, or for abandoning vehicles for the time they're not wanted?
There are at least two villages near here I know of, where parking has become a major issue.
In one there is parking on one side all up the main street. It turns it into what is effectively a one way system. But it's a "main road" (which is a joke in itself) or at least the main route to get from one town to another.
The other village has random parking so the main street is a sort of slalom, with again "one way" bits.
Local councils seem to think it slows down traffic in the villages!