Ryan got the application for the development permit (DP) submitted on January 22. We were on our way home from a vacation that day, so I didn't get to go see the process. As a recap, we decided to go with the less cumbersome contextual DP process. As long as our design fits within certain rules, we get our permit and don't need to have the community association approve it.
Yesterday, the city responded to our application and declared that we don't qualify for the contextual process for a number of reasons. The biggest are:
1) The garage is too big. What? What about the 2 different people at the city who told Ryan we were fine? Apparently neither of them are the ones reviewing our application. It's kind of irrelevant though because...
2) The house is too tall. Again, what? My first reaction was anger at the city for having explicit rules for this simplified process, but then leaving it up to the whim of a city employee to change those rules.
But no, it was Ryan who screwed up. The actual allowed height of a building is dependent on the houses next to you. But, there's a range. So, if your neighbours are bungalows, your max height under contextual rules is 8.6m. If your neighbours are super tall towers, you're only allowed to 10m without going through the discretionary process to justify your design. I knew about the range, I just didn't remember the exact numbers. Ryan apparently didn't know there was a range. So when he said the max was 32'9", I accepted that. And that's what we designed the house for, 10m = 32'9". But, we have bungalows as neighbours and 1 2 story house. So our max height for contextual is 8.6m.
So Ryan's 2 suggestions were:
1) Reapply under the discretionary process, but that will take 3-6 more months to get a permit, requires him to submit more drawings, and no guarantee that it would be accepted.
2) Redesign the house to meet the restrictions.
From the email, I got the feeling Ryan was hoping we'd take option 2. That's completely out of the question for us. A larger garage is the whole reason we are building, and on this lot specifically. Also, making the house 4'7" shorter means removing the third floor, which means a huge redesign, setting us back to day one. Day 1 was more than 6 months ago, so that's really not the option that saves us any time.
I was thinking we had 2 other options:
3) Fire Ryan and get someone else to take over. Someone who gets things done when he says he'll get them done, and who will look up the city restrictions before claiming we meet them.
4) Sell the lot and buy a house in Belize.
MrDinks phoned Ryan and set a new deadline for reapplying under the discretionary process. They agreed to change the little things that they city didn't like (the size of the closets that stick out on the 2nd floor, moving the house back yet another foot on the lot, making the garage 10cm shorter) and redo the drawings by February 13. We'll get to roll the permit fee we already paid into the new permit application. And hopefully Ryan realizes that we're frustrated and takes this deadline seriously.
Yesterday, the city responded to our application and declared that we don't qualify for the contextual process for a number of reasons. The biggest are:
1) The garage is too big. What? What about the 2 different people at the city who told Ryan we were fine? Apparently neither of them are the ones reviewing our application. It's kind of irrelevant though because...
2) The house is too tall. Again, what? My first reaction was anger at the city for having explicit rules for this simplified process, but then leaving it up to the whim of a city employee to change those rules.
But no, it was Ryan who screwed up. The actual allowed height of a building is dependent on the houses next to you. But, there's a range. So, if your neighbours are bungalows, your max height under contextual rules is 8.6m. If your neighbours are super tall towers, you're only allowed to 10m without going through the discretionary process to justify your design. I knew about the range, I just didn't remember the exact numbers. Ryan apparently didn't know there was a range. So when he said the max was 32'9", I accepted that. And that's what we designed the house for, 10m = 32'9". But, we have bungalows as neighbours and 1 2 story house. So our max height for contextual is 8.6m.
So Ryan's 2 suggestions were:
1) Reapply under the discretionary process, but that will take 3-6 more months to get a permit, requires him to submit more drawings, and no guarantee that it would be accepted.
2) Redesign the house to meet the restrictions.
From the email, I got the feeling Ryan was hoping we'd take option 2. That's completely out of the question for us. A larger garage is the whole reason we are building, and on this lot specifically. Also, making the house 4'7" shorter means removing the third floor, which means a huge redesign, setting us back to day one. Day 1 was more than 6 months ago, so that's really not the option that saves us any time.
I was thinking we had 2 other options:
3) Fire Ryan and get someone else to take over. Someone who gets things done when he says he'll get them done, and who will look up the city restrictions before claiming we meet them.
4) Sell the lot and buy a house in Belize.
MrDinks phoned Ryan and set a new deadline for reapplying under the discretionary process. They agreed to change the little things that they city didn't like (the size of the closets that stick out on the 2nd floor, moving the house back yet another foot on the lot, making the garage 10cm shorter) and redo the drawings by February 13. We'll get to roll the permit fee we already paid into the new permit application. And hopefully Ryan realizes that we're frustrated and takes this deadline seriously.
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