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  • HPH174 : Addressing height issues on our self build

    HPH174 : Addressing height issues on our self build

    Ben and Kay Adam-Smith visit their architects Parsons + Whittley to discuss how to move their project forward. There are decisions to be made over which designs to pursue, what materials to embrace and how to address the various constraints (including bringing down the height of the building).

     

    The story so far

    After buying a plot of land and hiring our architecture firm, we briefed them on what we were after.

    We really liked our first sketches back and we developed the floor plan within. Chris also submitted these sketches to the local planning department for feedback.

    Whilst waiting for the feedback from the planners, we had moved onto materials.

    The first option presented to us was a brick finish.

    The second option embraced black timber cladding (more of a barn aesthetic).

    Kay and I felt these routes weren’t quite right for us.

    And we asked about whether we could break up the building by using more than one material (e.g. lime render, lighter timber cladding, etc.). Little did we know that this suggestion would mean redesigning the house!

    However, this was also at the stage where the planners had fed back that they wanted the height of our building to be more in line with the extant consent.

     

    So the third option, which now addresses the height of the building and therefore the amenity of the neighbour (really down to overshadowing and view of the sky), is a house that steps down.

     

    The fourth route introduced something called a cat slide at the back of the house as a way to prevent a loss of amenity for the neighbour.

     

    These were the options we discussed in the meeting but we were keen to return to a simpler form if possible.

    The route we chose to pursue returned almost to the initial designs but with a cat slide at the back.

     

    Our finished house designs

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Parsons + Whittley

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  • HPH154 : The challenges of building a new home in a rural community – with Jeremy Harris

    HPH154 : The challenges of building a new home in a rural community – with Jeremy Harris

    Jeremy Harris, a scientist by background, wanted a low energy house for his retirement. He talks about the initial stages of his self-build project: finding a plot of land and obtaining planning approval.

    Jeremy Harris

    Interview with Jeremy Harris

    Jeremy Harris, a scientist by background, wanted a low energy house for his retirement. He first came up with the idea that he might like to build a house around ten years ago.

    It’s important to fully understand the beginning of the self-build process

    Jeremy found television programmes and magazines rarely touch on finding a plot, designing a house to fit that plot, and the people you have to employ to do all of that work. It can be very expensive, costing thousands of pounds for planning consultants, architects, building control, etc.

    Plots can seem very nice on websites but look nothing like the photographs in reality

    Finding a plot of land was extremely hard. The Harrises drove several thousand miles, visiting disappointing plots. They began by looking at what they wanted to build, but Jeremy concluded this was the wrong way round: first find a plot, then determine what type of house will fit on it.

    Having walked away from one likely prospect, by chance they found their plot of land 16 miles from where they were living. It was too overgrown to see properly and fenced so they couldn’t get into it, but looked like it might be exactly what they wanted: facing south (i.e. good solar access) and in a sheltered valley.

    There's a plot in there somewhere!
    There’s a plot in there somewhere!

    Buying a plot is not the same as buying a house – ensure services will be available

    When buying a plot of land a solicitor can tell you if there’s a public footpath on it but won’t find out if you’ve got water, mains electricity, mains sewage or even if the boundaries are in the right place.

    Services in rural areas are often stretched to the limit. Jeremy had to ask the relevant utility companies if they could supply:

    1. Electricity? Fortunately there was plenty of power on their doorstep.
    2. Water? Companies have a statutory duty to supply water but the issue is cost. They’d have to dig up a lane for 140 metres and although Jeremy shopped around (anybody with a licence can do the digging), the minimum cost was still £24,500.
    3. Mains sewerage? There’s no statutory requirement to supply this and the cheapest the water company could provide it was £14,800.
    4. A new phone connection? Telecoms companies see self-builders as developers. If there isn’t enough capacity, they can charge whatever they want to lay a new multi-cable.

    As services would cost so much, Jeremy renegotiated the price accepted. The land hadn’t sold for eight years so he persuaded the vendor to knock off a substantial amount.

    Many building plots have boundaries in the wrong place where the Land Registry is concerned

    Plots of land don’t have registered boundaries as a rule. There was a boundary error affecting the Harrises’ plot meaning the house approved to go on it wouldn’t fit.

    The process for resolving boundary errors is complex and time consuming. It’s up to the vendor to do it, so you have to persuade them to spend money with Land Registry to get title plans amended. This often affects adjacent houses, as well as your plot, involving lenders as they have a right on the title.

    A stumbling block can sometimes turn out to be an opportunity

    It took them a year to get their boundary error resolved, but this allowed time to plan the project properly.

    Jeremy wrote a brief with eight key design points but the architects he approached didn’t seem to understand the role of design with low energy houses. Looking further afield for a Passivhaus specialist was an option, but thinking the distance might make communication difficult Jeremy decided he’d design their house himself.

    So the year was productively spent:

    • Evolving designs for the house
    • Tracking down the local Openreach engineer who offered help at no cost, as Jeremy planned to dig trenches on the plot and an underground network would solve local problems with overhead cables and trees
    • Discovering a borehole was possible, at half the cost of mains water
    • Planning a sewage treatment plant, costing around £3,500; much cheaper than digging up the lane

    This avoided inflaming an existing situation with the neighbours, as the plot had a chequered planning history, and saved money too!

    The borehole
    The borehole

    Once the principle of development is established by an approval, it’s extremely difficult for planners to remove it

    The Harrises’ plot had planning permission for a little stone bungalow that they didn’t want. As the local authority had approved the principle of putting a house on the plot, their plan was to submit a new application.

    Areas of outstanding natural beauty, conservation areas and proximity to listed buildings put constraints on what you can build. For example, needing to have all the external materials approved, as was the case with Jeremy’s house.

    Good communication paves the way for a smoother planning application process

    In Jeremy’s area, seven objection letters result in the application being referred to a planning committee, where emotions come into play far more than planning law.

    A previous application for the plot resulted in 14 objections at Parish Council level and dozens of letters. To mitigate objections for their application, Jeremy spoke to every neighbour, sent them regular update newsletters and even Christmas cards.

    He also made scale models, enabling all interested parties to understand the design before the planning application went in. His wife could look inside the rooms to see whether they were big enough, and the neighbours could see what the house might look like in the landscape. And the scale model played an important part at the Parish Council planning meeting, where applicants aren’t allowed to talk.

    model-sw-view-small

    “We had several cases where objectors turned to supporters”

    Jeremy eliminated concerns by talking them through with neighbours:

    Genuine concernsWhat Jeremy did
    New house would overload the sewage systemExplained they were putting in a sewage treatment plant instead
    Height of the house might block views or cast shadowsUsed the 3D scale model to show that the house would be set into the hillside (3m down)
    Being overlooked in their back gardenUsed the model to show that the garage blocked the view (neighbour was also happy the garage protected their vegetable patch from the wind)

    Engaging with local people is important but Jeremy adds a caveat: be cautious and put your foot down if neighbours ask for too much; at the end of the day it’s your plot and your house.

    The Harrises got through the planning stage with no letters of objection at all, so the decision was down to a Planning Officer purely based on the law and planning policies for the area, and approval was granted.

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Jeremy Harris

    Find out more

    Check out Jeremy’s blog on the project

     

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  • Can You Retrofit Cohousing into an Existing Neighbourhood?

    Can You Retrofit Cohousing into an Existing Neighbourhood?

    Would you like a stronger sense of community where you live?

    How could you embrace the cohousing model and retrofit an existing neighbourhood?

    This article is a case study of N Street Cohousing in Davis, California, where they did exactly this. Kevin Wolf, the co-founder shares some of the lessons they have learned.

    NStreet Cohousing backyard (550)

    N Street Cohousing Came Together Over a Number of Years

    Initially Kevin Wolf lived in a co-op house. As such he would share dinners with the other housemates, share chores and do all the things that a family would do (as opposed to five separate people all living separate lives). They had clear rules of how they wanted to live together and Kevin says that it worked really well. After 4 or 5 years Kevin got married, and he and his wife decided to buy the property next door!

    At that point they tore down the fences and two houses ended up being better than one. Soon one of the other neighbours wanted to join in and so the community grew. This type of growth continued for the next 15 years!

    N Street Cohousing currently consists of about 21 houses on the block.

    Nstreet-cooking-(550)

    Houses Were Acquired on a Win Win Basis

    The growth of N Street Cohousing was very natural but there was a certain amount of planning. They made it clear to neighbouring homeowners in the area that should they want to sell their houses, someone from N Street Cohousing would be interested in buying. Not only would this cut out a lot of the work around selling a house but it could also avoid engaging the services of a real estate agent and thus the savings from not having the 6% commission would be split between both parties.

     

    Other Houses Were Leased

    N Street Cohousing was in a neighbourhood where lots of absentee landlords owned properties. So where possible they also took over leases of neighbouring houses.

    Absentee landlords were quick to figure out that they made very good tenants, who looked after the properties. As the cohousing community had the skills they eventually ended up managing a number of these houses, benefitting both landlords and tenants.

     

    New Community Members Often Rent a Room First

    One interesting aspect of N Street Cohousing is that there’s a flow between houses! Kevin Wolf explains: “Most people come into the community because people are renting rooms in their houses and they come into that house, but it ends up being that they have a partner, and then with the partner they end up having kids and then they want to move into their own house or buy their own house.”

    For example, someone who has been part of N Street Cohousing for 10 years might have lived in three or four different houses.

    So it provides an opportunity for those on lower incomes to be part of the community and gradually work their way towards renting or buying a house (as required).

    Gardens-chickens-and-CH-(550)

    You Can Retrofit a Cohousing Community Almost Anywhere But . . .

    While a cohousing community could be retrofitted anywhere there are some factors that will make it work better. The right area ideally includes:

    1. Houses where the kitchens or living rooms face the back yard

    This goes back to standard cohousing design because people are more likely to interact in these rooms if they see other neighbours walking by. Having bedrooms at the back of the house would not be so good. So if you can have this element of design, whereby the key rooms such as the kitchen back onto a common space then this is preferable.

    2. Good schools nearby

    A lack of good schools nearby will deter people with families from moving in. They always want the best for their children and while they may be prepared to take poor housing, education is very important to them.

    3. Low income rental properties

    Choosing somewhere that is rundown and has lower income rental houses has benefits. In a high income area, people do not move very often and there are also fewer rental opportunities. A lower income area where there are more properties to rent means that the community can grow more quickly. Plus the houses can be fixed up and improved over time (getting the landlord on board). This also allows you to bring in people who are more idealistic but don’t have the money for expensive houses.

    While renters may not live there very long, Kevin says they often make wonderful community members. Many graduate students from UC Davis have been part of N Street Cohousing.

     

    The Common House Must Serve the Needs of the Growing Community

    The common house is again a key component of cohousing design but, as with the rest of the community, it can grow at the same time. At N Street initially they ate round at each others’ houses, before taking over a garage for a couple of years and then finally adapting a larger house to suit their needs.

    Common-house-inside-kitchen-(550) N Street Cohousing’s common house

    Houses do Not Have to be Contiguous

    The term ‘retrofit cohousing’ may not be a broad enough description of what is going on as it perhaps implies that all houses eventually need to be side by side. However, this does not always have to be the case and certainly won’t be that way while the community is growing. So the houses can be spread out across the street or even a block or two away.

    Kevin says: “It can be a long time before you take over a block. It can be 10 to 20 years before you have all the houses on the block all together so in the meantime you might have houses that are non contiguous or they may be in the neighbourhood but they eventually maybe have one common house, that they have the shared tools in, they have shared meals in, they have their guest bedrooms in but it doesn’t have to be contiguous to everybody else’s house in the neighbourhood so it broadens the vision of what we’re really talking about.”

    It’s almost neighbourhood cohousing.

     

    Retrofitting Cohousing has Advantages over a Built Cohousing Community

    Creating a built cohousing community where land is developed or where an old building is bought and retrofitted from scratch can be costly and difficult. Not only is it a time-consuming, multi-year process but in many desirable locations finding land is difficult and expensive.

    So retrofitting a community can be less stressful and can just be about seizing the opportunities as they arise.

     

    You Can’t Please Everyone

    While it might seem like a cohousing community arrives one day and begins to take over an area, the reality is that there may be an influx of people who want to make that area better!

    Kevin says how they were quick to become part of the Neighbourhood Association and help out in a variety of ways.

    However, there will always be people who don’t want to get involved as Kevin explains: “In our community we have a neighbour who has lived there since the houses were built in the 1950s. She’s in her late 70s, 80s. She thinks we’re a bunch of hippies! She doesn’t want to take her fence down but we’re good neighbours to her. We talk to her. We’re one of the people that she talks to the most in the neighbourhood.”

    CH-patio-looking-to-pizza-oven-(550)

     

    We must say a big thank you to our friends at the UK Cohousing Network. Kevin was recently speaking at one of their events and caught up with us afterwards.