Lift house - new dwelling underneath

[Micholas]

Hi guys,

In the Auckland Unitary Plan is there anything stopping me from lifting an existing house and building a new dwelling underneath it? So ending up with 2x single level units. As far as I can tell, should be fine as long as all other controls are complied with...

Mixed Housing Suburban Zone.

Anyone have any idea or have had experience doing this themselves?

Thanks

[Nick G]

Shouldn't be. Get an architect and a LBP to walk around the site with you. It might cost you a bit for their time but they will be able to sling back and forth about design concepts, height planes, retaining walls, council requirements and in the ground costs and save you a ton of time and effort.

[Micholas]

Thanks Nick. I'll be doing this, was just wondering if there was something glaringly obvious that I was missing. I think the spirit of the AUP is that apartment-style options are for the Terrace Houses and Apartment Zone and perhaps there would be something stopping me from doing this in the Mixed Housing Suburban Zone.

Guess I'll just have to do whatever I can to dampen the noise between them!

[Nick G]

You could ask council directly, I guess. It's all so new that I don't think there is enough experience out there.

[John the builder]

Lifting a house and building under is possibly the hardest building task but commonly done. If a sloping section perhaps it doesnt even need lifting?

single house zone allows for existing building to be turned into two dwellings (but not subdivided) which is what you are doing so concept could also apply to this different zone?

[Davo36]

Lifting a house and building under is possibly the hardest building task but commonly done. If a sloping section perhaps it doesnt even need lifting?

Do you reckon it would be better and easier and cheaper to demolish and build 2 new ones?

[John the builder]

easier yes
cheaper not sure might depend on the builder?

point inregard to existinng in 'single house zone' is they may not let you remove the old house

[Nick G]

I'm sure council would be flexible and pragmatic in their thinking about this.

[Micholas]

I'm sure council would be flexible and pragmatic in their thinking about this.

haha - just wanted to add 'haha' but need ten characters to be able to post so here is the unnecessary explanation of my dilemma.

[Micholas]

Do you reckon it would be better and easier and cheaper to demolish and build 2 new ones?

The original thought was to demolish and build 3x 3brm units but it won't be easy to finance. I would need to sell one of our other houses to be able to do this. Even though the end result post-build would be great, the banks are testing serviceability @ 7.8% interest rates and shading future rental returns @ 75% which doesn't make the development look good in their eyes at all when you factor in the high build cost. If we instead just level/lift and move the existing house slightly, we can get in there and renovate it ourselves and also do most of the work on the new, bottom unit and end up with 2x 3brm units, using $100k RC and $30k cash savings to get the work started. Likely to rent for $650p/w each.

[Micholas]

Lifting a house and building under is possibly the hardest building task but commonly done. If a sloping section perhaps it doesnt even need lifting?

Thanks for the reply John. The house is already somewhat 2x story but the bottom floor is half dug-out into dirt. Just used for storage so we need to support and get the house leveled. We are considering moving it forward on site too white they have the gear there to level/support it. This would enable us to subdivide off the rear minor unit we have already constructed, and position the house better on the new site so we can develop or add on to it at a later stage if we want to. We will need to do some earthworks.

[SimonW]

I have a friend who owned a very old 3-bed Villa on a site in central Wellington near the top of Cuba St which he wanted to redevelop. If memory serves me correctly, the house may have been protected due to its age and heritage value, making redevelopment pretty unfeasible. Not to be defeated, he jacked the house up and built a 2 storey tilt-slab commercial building underneath it, with stairs leading to the house on the roof. The commercial building virtually takes up the entire plot, and the house now rests on top. As the commercial building's footprint is much larger than the house, the house now essentially has an expansive balcony wrapped around the entire perimeter with great views of the harbour.

The ground floor warehouse and first floor offices are rented out to a business, while the 2nd floor house is a residential rental. I have been to the house several times since the work was completed about a decade ago. It's an amazing feat of engineering which saw the GV of the property rise from $175k to $550k at the time of completion. It's currently worth around $1 million. He paid $60k for the site in 1994. I am not sure what it cost him to do but he's a pretty savvy investor so I assume he's done alright out of it - I imagine he created a phenomenal increase in cashflow from the development.

[Micholas]

I have a friend who owned a very old 3-bed Villa on a site in central Wellington near the top of Cuba St which he wanted to redevelop. If memory serves me correctly, the house may have been protected due to its age and heritage value, making redevelopment pretty unfeasible. Not to be defeated, he jacked the house up and built a 2 storey tilt-slab commercial building underneath it, with stairs leading to the house on the roof. The commercial building virtually takes up the entire plot, and the house now rests on top. As the commercial building's footprint is much larger than the house, the house now essentially has an expansive balcony wrapped around the entire perimeter with great views of the harbour.

The ground floor warehouse and first floor offices are rented out to a business, while the 2nd floor house is a residential rental. I have been to the house several times since the work was completed about a decade ago. It's an amazing feat of engineering which saw the GV of the property rise from $175k to $550k at the time of completion. It's currently worth around $1 million. He paid $60k for the site in 1994. I am not sure what it cost him to do but he's a pretty savvy investor so I assume he's done alright out of it - I imagine he created a phenomenal increase in cashflow from the development.

Sounds like a bloody good result for your friend there SimonW. I'm sure there was a lot of work in dealing with the council on that one.

[Nick G]

He got that through the WCC?

Gold star for that investor. I had to get a resource consent to add a window.

[SimonW]

He got that through the WCC?

Gold star for that investor. I had to get a resource consent to add a window.

Yea not a bad effort - it's the pink building in the below shot.