New Tricks in Illegal Building: Cover it in Hay
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.29.08
In many parts of the world there are development controls to preserve natural landscapes, watercourses and farmland, but there is constant pressure as well to build monster homes in the country and greenbelts are constantly under attack by devious developers or clever lawyers.
Or, as in the case of Robert Fidler of Surrey in the UK, one very patient farmer. Hiding behind 40 foot high wall of hay bales, he built himself a home and kept it tarped for four years to comply with a rule that if nobody complains about something for that period, it is permitted to stay, kind of like a statute of limitations. Then he pulled down the tarps....
...and revealed a faux tudor castle, complete with ramparts and cannons.
According to the Evening Standard:
'Problems began last April when Mr Fidler, thinking he had beaten the planning system, applied for a certificate of lawfulness which is given if a property is erected but nobody objects to it after four years.
But Reigate and Banstead Council says the four-year period after which the building would be allowed to stay is void – because nobody had been given a chance to see it.
The matter will now be decided in February by the council's planning inspector, who could give the Fidlers as little as six months to tear the castle down."
We have heard of many tricks to beat the system, and usually the builder gets away with it, often with little more than a slap on the wrist. However this nibbling away at protected land ultimately adds up and becomes a real problem. It will be interesting to see if he gets away with it. ::Evening Standard via ::Splurch
Yikes! It looked better when it was covered by hay bales.
Sneaky. Instead of covering what he was building up with scafolding, he did it with bales of hay. I hope he doesn't have to tear it down.
Yeah, you can't make an effort to conceal what you're doing.
And if it was buried under hay for four years, I'd worry it may have moisture problems that may have already permanently damaged the structure.
And boy is it ugly.
Tearing it down?! That would be a blatant waste of resources.
If it is disallowed (I don't think he should be allowed to get away with his trick), it should be moved ... at his expense!
Moreover, four years of subjecting the neighbours to such an ugly view of blue plastic tarps should be reason for a hefty fine, especially since it was a deliberate ploy to circumvent the law.
i don't think it's ugly, very classically European.
i think he should be made to pay some sort of recompense, and maybe be required to also pay for inspections and studies of the effect of his house on the land, etc. but he should be able to keep it.
The castle should be allowed to stand - no need for wasteful demolition, but the owner should be forced to sell it - at a price to be determined by the Council. Does that sound like a fair punishment?
It's his property, he should be able to do damn well what he pleases on it. Let him keep his castle.
It's not a box made out of sheet metal and glass, which automatically makes it "ugly" in the eyes of a lot of hipsters on Treehugger. Me? I rather like it. If it weren't on protected lands, I'd say keep it. And if it were a bit smaller, I'm sure it would be pretty treehugger. Stone is quite good at retaining heat and very durable. This house would probably have lasted a couple hundred years, like the many stone manor houses in England already have.
And the hay bales and tarps were an inspired hack.
The guy's a bastard, sure, but he's a smart bastard.
The trouble with this is that he cheated - not necessarily on the four year rule, but on the use of the land. Agricultural land in the uk is priced very differently to building plots - I've seen 10x difference in price and more for building plots - and is subject to planning laws, as well as receiving subsidies for farming. This guy seems to have been pocketing farming subsidies for the land too...
Every farmer could be a multimillionaire if they did this.
Ingenious. What kind of killjoy would punish such a clever workaround? Nobody complained about a giant ugly pile of hay covered in blue tarps, and no matter how banal this design is, it's clearly better than what was covering it. Let it stand, then change the law to prevent it happening again.
Well, it's not really a castle but a big home, maybe he can be forced to make it's surroundings greener.
Else he can be paraded round town using a wooden plank thinguie around his neck. It's better to light a candle than to destroy a mock tudor building... or so they say.
I love the way all these posters think it is perfectly OK to tell this guy what he can and cannot build on his own property. You people would be right at home in the old Soviet Union.
Granted, this is England, and they never did really understand what liberty really means, but still, you'd think the US commenters would know better.
I guess you're all too used to seeing the government as your mommie.
Pitiful. Truly pitiful.
All that trickiness and you can't find a sensible architect? It is ugly. Not because it is faux Tudor instead of Frank Lloyd Wright inspired (I actually hate--HATE--the man). Because it's bad faux Tudor. The proportions are all wrong for the design that it is evoking. The symmetry is inappropriate. The windows in the center section don't look right at all. For some reason it always seems that people who pull these kind of things also lack taste.
In his defense, though: for four years, no one complained about a 25-foot high, 5,000 sq. ft. pile of hay bales covered by a blue tarp and used tires?
It really doesn't matter if you people think it's ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and he's holding it.
I, for one, find it to have certain aesthetic and symbolic qualities.
The point is not the quality of the architecure, but the loss of the agricultural land. Development bylaws protect the long term well being of society from the short term greed of developers. You just don't get it. The ME generation has no social conscience, as all the commentators prove. It makes me sad...
Ben, you need to stop and think about what your saying. If every land owner did whatever they damn well pleased, the U.S. and or U.K. would be a terrible place to live.
Would you like it if your neighbor opened a liquor store next to your house? What about a half way house or tire shop or a bar that was open till 2:00 am. Doesn't sound very good does it?
If the rules were in place when this guy bought his land then he should tear it down, make an example of him.
Freedom is a choice and he made a poor one.
Regards,
I find it funny some can't tell the difference between opening a liquor store next door and simply erecting a living structure. Besides which, people don't need a liquor store or a bar to stay up till 2 am in the morning partying, or listening to the radio realllyy loud.
To sum it up: Why can't people mind their own business?
No mind.
No business.
If the average person spent half the amount of time paying attention to their own lives and dong the things they should be doing, instead of trying to tell other people how they should live this world would be a better place.
Let it stand, but make him cover it up with hay again!!! Then, no wastage of materials, excellent insulation and no offensive faux manoir to offend our tastes.. (and it is EXCESSIVELY tasteless!)
If the people can tolerate looking at blue tarp and hay bales for 4 years, they can deal with this. Should the owner pay for it, of course, but why waste more energy and tear the place down, the family's just going to have to build something new to live in anyways. Its a nice looking place, way better than half the cookie cutter pre-fab POS that you see all over the US.
And who hates Frank Lloyd Wright?? Your nuts!
After fining this couple heavily they should put bars on the windows take away the guns and cannons and imprison them in their butt ugly palace. Walling it all back in under hay bales and tarps.
Abe Lincoln, I would love to be the enforcement officer you contact in desperation when your neighbour decides to erect a structure on their own property which would be detrimental to your own amenities!
Live and let live!