Illegal House hidden in plain sight.. kinda.

[Elgin Clock]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Interesting story out of England.

No one complained about living next to a huge pile of hay and blue tarps for 4 years, but now they are complaining that they live next to an (in my opinion as a fan of all architectural designs) awesome castle type structure??

What is wrong with some people?

I applaud the homeowners for thinking outside the box... (or... inside the hay bail box shape so to speak)


This reminds me of someone we all know named Dean who had to abide by local zoning laws when putting in a Heliport on top of DEKA (or was it Segway? I'm not sure).

The law was to put a fence up around the area at a given height (I don't recall exactly what that was so let's say it was 6' for argument's sake)

Basically what he did, and I believe "got away with" by thinking outside the box, was by buying a 6' tall fence and laying it down on the ground around the heliport so as not to look like a fence and look like an ugly obstuction to a nice view. lol

All that was documented in the book Code Name Ginger if anyone is interested.
Cool beans!

[Roger]

Things like this happen all the time, but this guy takes the cake for creativity. A "demolition and new build" is different than "remodel". The first is usually two permits and the latter a more lenient permit process. I've heard stories of a house getting add-ons on all four sides plus roof, then once the occupancy permit is given, the innards are "remodeled" and the old house is essentually removed. A house near me was all torn down except for a bathroom (it did look kind of silly) and then rebuilt, probably permitted as a remodel. I'm hoping my garage stays up so I can remodel it instead of getting both a demo and building permits. With my luck you know what is really going to happen.

This guy does have guts trying this (and a lot of hay!), but I don't think he'll get away with it. Building departments don't like getting messed with, and council planners are even worse. And I don't know how close the neighborhood (sorry, neighbourhood - it is in England ) is, but you'd think someone would peek in and maybe notice some construction activity?