Requirement to draw neighbouring houses in planning application

Casati

Within DCC I see planning applications where the neighbouring houses are often drawn to perfect detail - e.g I saw application for an infill house in a space between two other semi-d's and the neighbouring houses are not drawn as an outline, but rather include all detail inc reveals, brick work to exact scale.

Does the architect need to effectively draw four (i.e. 2 semi'd's each side of the infill house) from scratch or is there a database of houses built that architect use to overlay? Cant understand how an architect could even measure a neighbours property unless they spent a day hanging out of ladders with a measuring tape after asking the owners for permission etc. Does the planning dept (DCC in this case) demand that neighbouring houses are drawn with such detail?

Also see plan drawings maybe showing the outline of the new houses mixed in between the full road and indeed neighbouring roads - how does an architect get the plan for every house on a road and their exact positioning? OS planning pack doesn't always show every house shown on some of these applications but maybe that is the source?

Penn

Casati wrote: »

Within DCC I see planning applications where the neighbouring houses are often drawn to perfect detail - e.g I saw application for an infill house in a space between two other semi-d's and the neighbouring houses are not drawn as an outline, but rather include all detail inc reveals, brick work to exact scale.

Does the architect need to effectively draw four (i.e. 2 semi'd's each side of the infill house) from scratch or is there a database of houses built that architect use to overlay? Cant understand how an architect could even measure a neighbours property unless they spent a day hanging out of ladders with a measuring tape after asking the owners for permission etc. Does the planning dept (DCC in this case) demand that neighbouring houses are drawn with such detail?

Also see plan drawings maybe showing the outline of the new houses mixed in between the full road and indeed neighbouring roads - how does an architect get the plan for every house on a road and their exact positioning? OS planning pack doesn't always show every house shown on some of these applications but maybe that is the source?

It's usually done by a combination of standard/typical measurements (eg. window heights, standard floor levels etc), done by eye or from photos, using the building you can measure as a reference for comparison, or drawings from previous planning applications if available (but as they'd be scanned PDFs, usually just used as a reference).

At the scales contiguous elevations are usually drawn at, neighbouring buildings usually aren't drawn exact, but should be close enough. There are times I've basically just brought in an image from Google Maps of the neighbouring building and drawn over it in CAD for the most part. It looks the part, but isn't going to be exact. For semi-detached buildings in an estate, the neighbouring buildings are pretty much going to be mirrors of the subject building with only minor changes.

Casati

Penn wrote: »

It's usually done by a combination of standard/typical measurements (eg. window heights, standard floor levels etc), done by eye or from photos, using the building you can measure as a reference for comparison, or drawings from previous planning applications if available (but as they'd be scanned PDFs, usually just used as a reference).

At the scales contiguous elevations are usually drawn at, neighbouring buildings usually aren't drawn exact, but should be close enough. There are times I've basically just brought in an image from Google Maps of the neighbouring building and drawn over it in CAD for the most part. It looks the part, but isn't going to be exact. For semi-detached buildings in an estate, the neighbouring buildings are pretty much going to be mirrors of the subject building with only minor changes.

Wow, so they are basically drawn in a similar fashion to the new house - in my example the new house (which was contemporary design) was shown between the neighbouring semi-d - but as you can imagine with a 1970's estate each house was extended / garage converted / dormers added etc so I can only imagine the amount of work that went into it.

Penn

Casati wrote: »

Wow, so they are basically drawn in a similar fashion to the new house - in my example the new house (which was contemporary design) was shown between the neighbouring semi-d - but as you can imagine with a 1970's estate each house was extended / garage converted / dormers added etc so I can only imagine the amount of work that went into it.

A good experienced draughtsman can extrapolate a lot from photos to get a pretty close estimate of heights, distances etc. Using no. of courses of brick, typical/standard angles of roofs, no. of slates/tiles etc. You can even bring photos into CAD and scale them based on one or two known measurements and be able to take the rest of the measurements from the photo (depending on angle, perspective etc).

The neighbouring buildings don't have to be exact for planning, they should just look similar enough to show how the new building/extension fits into the existing landscape. But it does show why it's usually best to hire someone to do the drawings rather than attempting to do them yourself. Experienced persons can throw together such elevations a lot quicker and knowing what the required tolerances and details are.

PMBC

Digital scanner and all perfect.

If you could afford it!