ᐅ Issue with Building Line

Hello everyone,

We are currently facing a problem because the city does not want to approve our building request, since our house with a pitched roof is not entirely built along the building line adjacent to the street/path.

Our house is designed so that the ground floor is fully aligned with the building line, but the upper floor, along with the roof, is set back about 1.5 meters (5 feet) to the rear. This means we would have a small flat roof section at the front. The regulations only state that construction must be on the building line, without further details. In some development plans, it is explicitly required that the entire building be on this line, but that is not the case in our plan. Also, besides our neighbor on the right, there is no other house in this row.

According to our architects, they have always received approval for this type of design, and they feel like they are dealing with an authority that unnecessarily obstructs the process. We do not really want to go with the suggested alternative, as we like the original design very much. At the moment, we do not know what to do. The city refers to a commentary on the law mentioning this restriction, but is that actually legally binding?

Has anyone experienced a similar issue? The construction method is certainly unusual, and we suspect it might not have been anticipated in the regulations, which could be why it is simply being blocked. Does it make sense to try to legally challenge this?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Sascha

The authority is rigid, and most of the time the builder ends up losing.

If they justify it by saying that the upper floor must follow the building line, then simply move the ground floor 1.5m (5 feet) forward :-)

Then the ground floor would no longer be aligned ;-)

See? 😉 If you communicate directly with the person responsible at the building authorities, you might be lucky.

It's always nice when you can out-argue the authorities with their own points 🙂

Still, I have to wonder: here, all the permits are supposed to be approved quickly because asylum policies are putting too much pressure on the building department.