AIBU to expect neighbours to accept our approved house rebuild plans?

[WarmLimeLurker]

DH and I recently bought what we hope will be our forever home. We were only able to do so because of inheritance DH inherited from his late father, and I'd inherited from my grandfather years ago. I'd kept my inheritance invested for around 12 years, and together we were able to buy the property outright.

The house itself wasn't why we bought it. We bought it because we absolutely loved the location, knowing from day one that we'd be replacing the existing house with a home that would suit our family for the long term. We have three young children (6, 3 and 15 months), so we're still living in our London flat while the project gets underway.

We spent over a year working through the planning process. The plans were amended, neighbours had the opportunity to comment, objections were considered, and the council ultimately granted planning permission.
Now we're preparing to start, a handful of neighbours have become quite vocal. We've been told we're ruining the street, that the house is too large, and that we should rethink the project altogether.

I completely appreciate that living next to a building site isn't ideal, and we'll do everything we reasonably can to minimise disruption. What I'm struggling with is the feeling that, even though we've followed every rule and obtained permission, some people seem to think we shouldn't build at all.
Part of me also wonders whether some of the resentment is because we're currently based in London. There have been a few comments along the lines of "London people coming here and changing everything."

The irony is that this area is home for me. I grew up here, went to school here, my parents still live here, my grandparents are here, and this is exactly where I always hoped we'd eventually settle to raise our own children. We're not buying it as an investment or a developer's project we genuinely intend to live there for many years.

DH says we should stop worrying about what people think and just focus on our family. I can't help feeling uneasy that we're starting off on the wrong foot with the neighbours, but equally I don't think we should feel guilty for building a home that's been properly approved.

AIBU to think that once planning permission has been been granted, people should accept the decision and let us get on with building our forever home?

Having lived next door to a mega project, it’s absolutely impossible to comment without seeing the plans. In general of course you’re not unreasonable, but are you blocking people’s views/taking significant light/increasing overlooking with big windows or balconies for example. Councils absolutely don’t give a shit about neighbour amenity and often spend most time on major developments, so the planning process doesn’t always protect or balance people’s interests as it should. As architects you are also practised in pushing the system so I can understand people might be a bit fearful. People have realised our council will scrutinise initial plans carefully but rebuilds get a much more lenient treatment and non material amendments are often a sneaky way to introduce major changes later in the process. So it’s pretty difficult to give a view without understanding specifics.

I agree with this. There is nothing I hate more than neighbours like mine who buy a lovely old period house and then decide to gut it and destroy all its features. As you say, councils grant planning permission for just about anything nowadays. The people who bought the house next to me didnt live there for the first six months while builders were butchering a beautiful Victorian house, so weren’t impacted by the constant noise from builders who ignored the terms of the party wall award and council’s permitted working hours, not to mention the damage they caused to our property. As the entitled arseholes pointed out, they were given permission to turn a lovely period house into an open plan monstrosity and stick a square box on the back, but if the house didnt suit their needs, why couldn’t they buy a house that was right for them instead of ruining a house that had been lovingly maintained for over 100 years?

OP, of course your neighbours will hate you for as long as you live next to each other, and they will no doubt do as we have done and contact planning enforcement for every deviation from the agreed plans - it is very satisfying when our neighbours are told to stop work for another 12 week enquiry into each planning breach 🤣🤣

Our next door neighbours had some noisy work done in May two years ago. They moved out because their dd was doing her GCSE’s so didn’t want the noise disruption. So was my DD. Thanks for that you areseholes. No note, no consideration for her whatsoever.
I think that’s the difference with life now. Everyone is doing what they want and not considering others.
have you knocked on the door of each neighbour op and spoke to them about how doing what you want affects them and offered to do anything to help?

You have the permission so you can do it, but you can’t expect them to be happy about it really. You won’t be living amongst the chaos and noise of the build but they will, if you thought it wouldn’t be disruptive you’d live amongst it yourself.

YANBU just build what you have permission for and try to mitigate things for your neighbours. Don’t put a foot wrong because they will be straight onto the Council if things start appearing which aren’t in the approved plans.

When you’re visiting the house, make an effort to chat to your neighbours. They’ll be mardy for a while but people tend to get over things eventually.

It seems odd how vocal
people are being after the planning process, and that you’re hearing about it via the contractors.

I wouldn’t care if people don’t like the design. As long as you don’t piss off neighbours during the build itself, you don’t need to have anything to do with them going forward

A close relative of mine has knocked down a horrible bungalow of no architectural value and replaced it with a modern house. The process has been going on for years, through planning etc and now the build itself. The neighbours hate them,
as evidenced by the complaints to the council, notes through their door and shouting in the street. My advice is to rise above it. You aren’t going to persuade them to like you or your project and you may as well accept that now. Give it ten years and they will be used to you being there, and some new neighbours may have arrived for whom your house is the normal. But I think you just have to tough it out in the meantime. Your family are nearby and it may help to join clubs or whatever so that you become known as that nice couple without anyone linking you to “that bloody awful monstrosity they built in xx road” so that when they find out that’s where you live, they already like you. Otherwise your neighbours don’t have to like what you’ve done and can complain to you/each other/ your contractors as much as they like!

Hopefully your design is sympathetic and when you’ve finished the build your garden landscaping will mean it soon blends in and they forget.
In the meantime for the immediate neighbours all I would suggest is that they have your telephone number to message if there are issues - contractors can be inconsiderate, and that you listen to them, hopefully they won’t whinge for the sake of it.
Regular check ins that things are ok to show you care is about the only thing that you can do.

Yes, you are being unreasonable to expect them to accept your plans. Why should they? They're your plans, not theirs; you will benefit, they won't. They are under no obligation to like the disruption it will bring, they are under no obligation to like your house when it is built and they are under no obligation to like you. You seem to think that because you lived there at some time in the past, your return should be celebrated. It won't mean anything to anyone. Just do the build and move in quietly and try to be a good neighbour thereafter.

I. Think this depends on what you are looking to do. We live by a row of old Victorian style detached houses, big massive gardens 3 floors, proper brick work and character: someone has bought one and completely modernised it, but big privacy gates up, took all the hedges & 100 year old trees out and it’s just looks out of kilter with the rest of the houses, they have isolated themselves by putting the high wall and gates up rather than the low style wall/gate/hedges Everyone else has.

i know it’s yours and you can do it what you like but I get the sadness if a house is being completely changed and nothing like the rest of them in the street

Also some builders can be very inconsiderate. Their job is to complete the work they usually don't care about upsetting neighbours.
Our experience when the homeowner has not been living in the house has been loud radios blaring out all day, early starts even on a Saturday, shouting to each other , dirt and rubble coming onto our driveway, dust everywhere without it being cleared.
Are you sure your builders are being considerate? .

I think there are some lovely properties which were in keeping with the area, with nice original features.

Then some people want to completely change the property (usually rendered white with dark windows), rip out garden frontages and trees for a bland massive parking area, and they just ruin the look of the place.

Is that what you are doing?

OP, you seem naive. I'm not a London architect but even i know that most people hate lengthy building work, especially when (1) the clients themselves aren't inconvenienced and (2) an old property is demolished to make way for a new build which changes the appearance of the street and may not date well

Genuinely surprised you didn't see this coming

Perhaps you could set up a WhatsApp group for neighbours so you can inform them of timescales, busier periods etc. Ask them to let you know if builders damage their property etc. Thank them for their patience and understanding. Make sure the group is set up so no one else can rely

Not much you can do now but Contracting respectful builders (even if it’s more expensive) and making some conditions for the tender would go a long way towards making things easier when you move in. I still resent the family who rebuilt the house next to us and refused to speak to the builders about the radio blaring and constant yelling and swearing. Banging and drilling go with the territory but listening to bloody awful pop music and effing and blinding through a whole summer was something else.

I knew there was nothing we could do about the build itself and someone else had done the same to our house before we moved in - but making the whole experience unnecessarily unpleasant for everyone in the street was worse. So, by the time they finally moved in and wanted to be all neighbourly nobody could be bothered.

It’s not inevitable, when the house opposite doubled in size it was noisy but the builders were professional and always polite and friendly. There was no yelling, and no radio. It was one of their selling points as a firm.

Oh see you’re architects. I’ve seen some of those architect build houses on Grand Designs. It’s not like that is it……? In which case it might be out of keeping with the area.

For the residents to have a strong view like this you’re clearly doing something a bit out there OP, you’re playing it down saying you’re building something to “suit” your family life.

This. It's going to be difficult if you're not living on site.

We had building work next door and had to be very firm with the builders (and the neighbours) to stop them taking the piss. Builders will always treat it like a building site rather than a residential area unless they're reined ime.

OP said they did complain during the planning permission stage. But the build still went ahead.
Also once work starts the disruption starts , I can i can understand why the neighbours are upset

This. YABU. Sounds horrendous for your neighbours when you are miles away with no disruption. It wouldn't be a 'dream house' for me if the entire street hated me when you finally move in. You won't be able to keep an eye/ear on builders - we had similar recently where neighbours moved out for major renovations. Builders kept having acrid fires and blasting music, working outside of the allowed hours for noisy work, parking in stupid places.

Well you’ve done nothing wrong. But that doesn’t mean your neighbours have to like you plans. Unfortunately for them there’s just nothing they can do about it

I genuinely don’t understand your problem OP. Everything is legal and above board, why are you bothered what the local gossips think? Once moved in, your family life will take over and be running, you’ll not be living in the pockets of neighbours, despite the idealistic views you may have 🤷‍♀️ Just build your house and ignore them all 🤷‍♀️

That's fair, and they're under no obligation to get on with us. All we can do is be respectful keep them informed as much as possible , and try to minimise the disruption as much as possible

Also I don't know why you think your fancy house will improve the house prices. Sounds like an eyesore.

You expect them to be happy about long term building work? Really? I nearly lost my mind when I had to listen to our new kitchen going in for two weeks. It's one thing living in it when you can ask the builders to turn the radio down or move their vans when they're blocking neighbours but if you're some distance away it's just going to piss people off, they get all the stress of living next to a building site and you just rock up at the end.

We got to last & final offers on a lovely older house, gorgeous big garden, it just needed some tarting up to bring it up to date but sadly the other people offered more. I walk past it regularly, 2 years of house building and it's an awful McMansion now with half the garden gone.

Agree, its not ideal. DH is not bothered whereas I am

Ultimately you can’t control how other people feel and think. You can only control your own actions. If you have permission then you have permission. You can’t make the neighbours like it though and no one here can say for sure if their unhappiness is reasonable or not.