A homeowner has been ordered to demolish a tiny house he built on the driveway instead of garage. The striking building was built without planning permission in Vaughton Street, Birmingham.
The building far exceeds the single-storey garage that planners approved in 2019 which had a footprint of 5.3m x 4.6m and a height of 3.6m and bears no resemblance to a garage. The resident was told to demolish the new building, according to BirminghamLive, following an unsuccessful appeal.
In his report, Inspector Thomas Shields wrote: "It is substantially larger than the approved building. It is not a minor difference. In comparison with the approved garage, the appeal building has a footprint of approximately 8.7m x 4.7m and a height of 5.3m.
"Instead of a garage door, there is a pedestrian door into the front room and a tripartite bow window. Two more windows in the rear elevation serve a separate, smaller room.
"Instead of single-storey, the appeal building is 1.5 storey and has two rooms in the roof, facilitated by an almost full-width box dormer. All of these differences, between what was approved, and what has been built, are not minor.
"Since the appeal building bears little resemblance to the scale and design of the approved single-storey garage, it does not benefit from that planning permission. The requirements of the notice are: demolish the entire unauthorised detached structure and remove all demolished building materials and rubble from the premises."
The building still stands at time of publication even though the appellant was given until July this year to demolish it after being told he was in breach of the original planning permission. The homeowner refused to comment when approached by BirminghamLive.
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "We served an EN (enforcement notice) for the demolition of the unauthorised structure when the owner lost at appeal. We are in discussions with the owner re timeline. Compliance with the notice was due by July 1, 2022."
