ᐅ Is it possible to have a single-story “townhouse villa” without an extension in Lower Saxony?

Hello everyone,

Is it possible to build a townhouse "villa" without extensions in a residential area (Lower Saxony) with a ridge height of 9m (29.5 ft) and single-story construction?

The upper floor should have a minimum clear height of 2.4m (7.9 ft).

Or can this only be achieved with extensions such as bay windows, heated conservatories, etc., on the ground floor?

Thank you very much

Baumitfreude schrieb:

Is it possible to build a townhouse “villa” without extensions in a residential area (Lower Saxony) with a ridge height of 9m (29.5 ft) and single-story design?

Yes, with a knee wall of about 1.80 to 2.10 meters (5 ft 11 in to 6 ft 11 in) and an appropriate roof pitch.

Baumitfreude schrieb:

Should the upper floor have a minimum clear height of 2.4m (7 ft 10 in)?

That contradicts the single-story design.

Some achieve this with a mezzanine or open space. However, that adds cost and affects the floor plan. The ground floor then needs to be larger, which often leads to considering an extension instead.

My advice is always: wrong plot, keep looking… or just be flexible.

Baumitfreude schrieb:

Is there a way to build a “townhouse villa” without extensions in a residential area (Lower Saxony) with a ridge height of 9m (30 feet) and single-story construction? [...] Or can this only be done with extensions such as bay windows, heated conservatories, etc., on the ground floor?

By "extensions," you probably mean anything that makes the ground floor larger than the upper floor (?).

Baumitfreude schrieb:

The upper floor should have a clear height of at least 2.4m (8 feet)?

Either/or, six of one, half a dozen of the other: if you want a second floor basically against the will of the development plan, there are only three options:
1. Make the ground floor, as the main full story, so large that the upper floor/attic can be counted as a relatively minor partial story
(that is, let the ground floor expand extensively) or
2. Make the upper floor and attic equal in external size, but allocate parts of their floor areas to the ground floor
(that is, include voids or double-height spaces in the ground floor that reduce the counted floor area of the upper floors) or
3. Actually build less floor area on the upper floor/attic
(for example, an upper floor set back as a recessed story with genuinely smaller floor area, or an attic with a correspondingly high roof slope portion counted).

Baumitfreude schrieb:

Now we would like to build a “cube house” with a flat roof

That was two years ago — enough time by now to present a more practical concrete house concept.

What exactly do you want or what is this about? Do you consider “anything that isn’t a cuboid” aesthetically so unacceptable that the question of "how many rooms of what sizes for how many people and which purposes" is totally secondary?
Leaving a plot unused for two years (because without a plot there wouldn’t be a valid development plan anyway), just because you haven’t found a loophole yet for a de facto two-story building that is de jure a one-story, is kind of crazy...

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That’s unfortunate. Unfortunately, I am inflexible, or the budget and the building regulations don’t align. We once built a house in Schleswig-Holstein, where it was possible to build a townhouse with the only downside, for me, being that roller shutters were not allowed on the upper floor due to the height. We had windows about 1.80 meters (5 ft 11 in) high upstairs, and then the roof slope started at an angle of 20 degrees.

I always thought the same would be possible in Lower Saxony, meaning windows at least 1.80 meters (5 ft 11 in) high with roller shutters.

Acquaintances in Lower Saxony planned the ground floor slightly larger than necessary, recessed the upper floor all around, and added a gallery/open space.
Well, if you have that much money left over without any real purpose, you can do that.

To save money, why not build exactly what the building permit / planning permission allows without any costly tricks?

Baumitfreude schrieb:

I always thought that this would be possible exactly the same way in Lower Saxony

It is not the state building code but the zoning plan that requires a single-story building here. The state building codes only differ between three-quarter and two-thirds states.

Baumitfreude schrieb:

at least 1.80m high windows + roller shutters

You don’t need roller shutters in the dressing room and bathroom, and while the teenagers care about the roller shutters (but not the window height), you could add a dormer with high windows and roller shutters in the bedroom to solve the problem easily.

haydee schrieb:

Acquaintances in Lower Saxony planned the ground floor slightly larger than necessary,

From the answer in post #4, I still don’t see what is so problematic about the “extensions.”

Baumitfreude schrieb:

that’s a pity, yes unfortunately I am inflexible or my budget and the zoning plan don’t match

If you can afford two years of financing land without being able to use it to meet your housing needs, then there really shouldn’t be any complaints about your budget.

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