This is my first post. I have been lurking for a while now. This is a great community and I'm hoping someone here can help me out. Any advice is much appreciated.
I would like to build a new 4-5 bedroom house for my son's family on the back of one of my rental properties in Auckland.
It's an old 1920's double brick 3 bedroom house sitting on 819m2. I have owned it since 1993. It has alot of character and looks nice but in reality it's cold, damp and not energy efficient. It is protected under the Devonport heritage laws so it can't be knocked down. It sits close to the front leaving a large backyard so there is lots of room for a new house behind it. My plan is to renovate the property and build a new house at the back.
From what I have read so far in order to subdivide you need a minimum of 800m2 (so each section is 400m2) but this excludes the driveway area. In my situation it looks like I'm just a little short as the drive way will likely take about 40m2. Has anybody else experienced this situation before? Is it OK to be a little short if everything else is satisfactory? A friend of mine mentioned a loop hole where you can cross lease just the driveway thus having enough land, but it seemed like he didn't know what he was talking about.
The other option is to build a minor dwelling but I have read conflicting rules regarding this. From my understanding, if your property is over 800m2 you can build a large minor dwelling but if it is under 800m2 the limit is 60m2. This rule was dependent on different councils but hasn't all the councils merged together into the Auckland Super City so all the rules are the same? 60m2 is far too small for a family house so this wouldn't be a viable option if that was the maximum size I could build.
Another option I read was to buy a small strip of land from the neighbors property to have enough land to subdivide. This wouldn't be ideal as I doubt the neighbor would approve of this. What is interesting is that the neighbor's house is larger at about 950m2 and I remember a long time ago it was approved for subdivision but the owner never went ahead with it. There is also a property next to his which was subdivided. The total area was only 830m2 but it didn't have a driveway as both houses had street frontage.
To make things even more complicated under the new proposed Auckland unitary plan my property is zoned as a single house and the minimum amount of land for subdivision is going to be 600m2. If I wanted to subdivide it would have to be soon, hence why I am looking into this now. I want to keep both properties so it makes sense not to subdivide as I've read it cost around $80k and it's cheaper to keep it under one title.
I guess I could always sell the entire property and buy some where else but I would like all options on the table first before proceeding.
I would like to build a new 4-5 bedroom house for my son's family on the back of one of my rental properties in Auckland.
It's an old 1920's double brick 3 bedroom house sitting on 819m2. I have owned it since 1993. It has alot of character and looks nice but in reality it's cold, damp and not energy efficient. It is protected under the Devonport heritage laws so it can't be knocked down. It sits close to the front leaving a large backyard so there is lots of room for a new house behind it. My plan is to renovate the property and build a new house at the back.
From what I have read so far in order to subdivide you need a minimum of 800m2 (so each section is 400m2) but this excludes the driveway area. In my situation it looks like I'm just a little short as the drive way will likely take about 40m2. Has anybody else experienced this situation before? Is it OK to be a little short if everything else is satisfactory? A friend of mine mentioned a loop hole where you can cross lease just the driveway thus having enough land, but it seemed like he didn't know what he was talking about.
The other option is to build a minor dwelling but I have read conflicting rules regarding this. From my understanding, if your property is over 800m2 you can build a large minor dwelling but if it is under 800m2 the limit is 60m2. This rule was dependent on different councils but hasn't all the councils merged together into the Auckland Super City so all the rules are the same? 60m2 is far too small for a family house so this wouldn't be a viable option if that was the maximum size I could build.
Another option I read was to buy a small strip of land from the neighbors property to have enough land to subdivide. This wouldn't be ideal as I doubt the neighbor would approve of this. What is interesting is that the neighbor's house is larger at about 950m2 and I remember a long time ago it was approved for subdivision but the owner never went ahead with it. There is also a property next to his which was subdivided. The total area was only 830m2 but it didn't have a driveway as both houses had street frontage.
To make things even more complicated under the new proposed Auckland unitary plan my property is zoned as a single house and the minimum amount of land for subdivision is going to be 600m2. If I wanted to subdivide it would have to be soon, hence why I am looking into this now. I want to keep both properties so it makes sense not to subdivide as I've read it cost around $80k and it's cheaper to keep it under one title.
I guess I could always sell the entire property and buy some where else but I would like all options on the table first before proceeding.
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