New neighbour applies for permission for monstrous extension - without telling us

Mango Joe wrote: »

You're confusing people having a reverent respect for the letter of the law and a love for the great beauty and elegance of the bureaucratic machine with someone being a honest, decent and likeable human being.

In my experience when people try and get to where they want to be by being calculated, sneaky and underhanded then they most often get the reaction they deserve - And when they don't it's a great pity.

A colleague of mine told me years ago that he had bought a house and had plans to build a monster 2 story extension right up against the wall with the neighbor.
I asked him what did the neighbor think of that. He said that that night himself and the wife were going to call over with a bottle of wine and the plans and sweet talk them.
I never followed up to see how that went


Imagine the door bell rings. Oh, we are your new neighbors, came over to say hello. Here is a bottle of wine.
Come in. Lets open the wine. (oh these seem like lovely new neighbors)
Out come the plans.
What? Is that what you brought the fcuking wine over for. You total scheming scum.

Mango Joe wrote: »

You're confusing people having a reverent respect for the letter of the law and a love for the great beauty and elegance of the bureaucratic machine with someone being a honest, decent and likeable human being.

In my experience when people try and get to where they want to be by being calculated, sneaky and underhanded then they most often get the reaction they deserve - And when they don't it's a great pity.

What you consider to be "basic courtesy" by telling a neighbour of your plans, some neighbours consider it an opening to have an opinion.

It takes some experience to know how to frame and direct the conversation. You're telling the neighbour out of common courtesy what you're doing, you're not asking for their approval or even their opinion. The conversation is not, "What do you think, is this OK?". It's, "This is happening, do what you need to be prepared".

Unfortunately no matter how assertive you may be, some neighbours will still think they're entitled to have you hear their opinion about your extension.

Some people have been burned enough times that they forgo the common courtesy completely because they see it as a waste of time.

Dav010 wrote: »

personally, I’d like my house to be different to the 100 others in the estate.

I disagree completely. I live in a well designed older estate where all exterior walls are white and all windows have the same design. Now new people are moving in and painting in different colours and changing the window design. It smacks of "this is mine and don't mistake it for anyone elses" and is ruining the clean cut look of the whole place.

Dav010 wrote: »

Human nature, not everyone wants everything to look the same.

I agree, it's boring, we live on a street of about 100 houses where all windows are the same, all windows are small panes in squares like 30cm x 20cm , horrible things.

We changed them to one big pane of clear glass. Murder there was, letters from neighbours and the residents association giving out.

They object to anything and everything.

But go look on the planning map and you'll see over half of the members of the residents association have had building work and changes done with no objections. Hmmmm.

Mostly a bunch of arseholes with too much time on their hands. Or they can't handle that someone's house could look better than theirs.

They still knock and leave messages at our door if our grass is over 1 inch, they get told to go **** themselves on a regulars basis. Apart from that, lovely area :pac:


EDIT: we also have a wanker at the back of us, we had trees there against the boundary wall, nothing majorly high. They complained about sun light all the time, they weren't getting any. So we got rid of them, cost us thousands.

What does he do? builds a huge workshop, the height of it was larger than the trees and spans wider than the trees that were there so he still has no sunlight.

**** the neighbours is what i say, you own your house and your property, If you want to build and it's all within the regs then who gives a **** what they think. I couldn't give a rats ass if i can't wave and say hello to mary from next door anymore. My life goes on.

cnocbui wrote: »

That is some carzy sh1t, right there. Needless to say, I wouldn't agree with that in any way.

Just a couple of days ago I stopped along a road near me to have a chat with a young woman to compliment her on the amazing job she and her husband had done in buying doing up an old cottage and transforming it into something modern and sleek, where they expanded the available living area considerably by building a slightly larger, complimentary structure next to the transformed original.

Times change, faimilys change, society changes and buildings often need to change to better fit the era.

That's fine for a one off but not a house in a housing estate that was well designed originally but becomes a hotch potch over time.

crossman47 wrote: »

That's fine for a one off but not a house in a housing estate that was well designed originally but becomes a hotch potch over time.

There's no Borg estates in this country where all houses are maintained to the same standard.

That's a pipe dream.
.you should be happy new people are taking pride in their property rather than the borg houses aging and looking nothing like when they went up

crossman47 wrote: »

That's fine for a one off but not a house in a housing estate that was well designed originally but becomes a hotch potch over time.

Finding a housing estate that was well designed is going to be a hard search in Ireland.

Treppen wrote: »

That's the law of the universe, everything breaks down, it's entropy.

From planning disputes to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.