Property: Right of Way restrictions?

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I'll keep it in mind. Are there any hard and fast rules about this sort of stuff? Or is it just if it becomes an issue?

I don't plan on butting the deck up against their house, the plan was to leave at least a foot between the edge of the deck and their house.

You should follow setback rules. Failing that, get plans drawn up and try to get a relaxation. Failing that, they may just stamp on the RPR that they'll give you two weeks notice before they come in and destroy everything.

[onetwo_threefour]

Originally Posted by Shazam

You should follow setback rules. Failing that, get plans drawn up and try to get a relaxation. Failing that, they may just stamp on the RPR that they'll give you two weeks notice before they come in and destroy everything.

With the MARW. it's not quite as simple as that. The whole point of the right-of way is that your neighbour has the right to access your land to maintain the side of their house. In most cases the MARW says you can use that part of your land as a driveway, yard, or ornamental garden but does not 'permit' you to build anything. The actual right that the neighbour has is to get in and do necessary maintenance because in most cases you're dealing with a Zero-Lot line where the houses are built with one side of the foundation right on the property line and the other side of the foundation being eight or more feet from the property line on the other side. That's in contrast to the more normal situation where you have a minimum of 4 feet from your foundation to the property line on both sides. The problem is, if you build a house right up against a property line and don't have an MARW, technically your neighbour has to tresspass on your land every time he wants to paint the side of the house or put a ladder up to clean his gutters.

Technically, I the city does not enforce the MARW, but your neighbour can, and that's the issue if you sell. If you build a deck on the MARW and it makes it so I can't put a ladder up against the side of my house, even though it's on your land I may be able to get a court order requiring you to remove the deck. If you get along with your neighbour, it may not be a big deal, but it can be.

So no, there are no 'hard and fast rules' as to what you can safely build there. IMO, the safest course is not to build any structures in the side yard on this type of lot. If you do, you should try and consider what kind of access your neighbour might need now or in the foreseeable future and build to accomodate. (i.e. if he's got siding, making sure that if someone needed to get a ladder or scaffold in to replace siding or paint might be a good idea) From a legal standpoint building anything may be dodgy. If the MARW actually says you can build a deck then you would be fine, but in my experience they rarely say anything like that.

The reason I quoted the post I did is because relaxations and set-back requirements simply don't apply in this situation. You're not dealing with a by-law that the city can choose to relax, you're dealing with private contractual rights between the neighbours.


Hope that helps.

[Shazam]

Oh, I'm fairly certain he'd never get that relaxation

[Ne7en]

Question regarding zero-lot lines:
My neighbor is building his garage with 0.0m setback from our shared property line. This is the same side that my house sits 0.0m from the property line. Does anyone know if this is permitted? I've read that with maintenance free materials you can have 0.0 setback from the property line, however is there anything suggesting the garage should be built adjacent with the house (sharing the same zero-lot line) rather than being shifted? Any info would really be helpful.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Ne7en

Question regarding zero-lot lines:
My neighbor is building his garage with 0.0m setback from our shared property line. This is the same side that my house sits 0.0m from the property line. Does anyone know if this is permitted? I've read that with maintenance free materials you can have 0.0 setback from the property line, however is there anything suggesting the garage should be built adjacent with the house (sharing the same zero-lot line) rather than being shifted? Any info would really be helpful.

From what I gathered, it also has to be brick and fire rated, along with a few other things, but I may have been reading that wrong.

[Ne7en]

[BigNumbers]

There are no rules that prevent what you've shown, AFAIK. What's the concern for you? I assume sight lines from your house?

[puffnstuff]

Would the neighbour need a new right of way? Because he would now need access to your property to maintain his newly built garage...whereas his right of way would/should exist for the other property line where his house is. Or is it just built in that he would have it for both property lines?

[Zarley]

Per the LUB (assuming your lot is R1N), your neighbour would need to have an easement registered on your title to permit that. Typically for a zero-lot-line the garage will be built to the same property line as the house, so I doubt his access and encroachment easements would be registered on your title by the developer. Take a look at your title to check.

(5)One building setback from a side property line may be reduced to zero metres where:

(a) the owner of the parcel proposed for development and the owner of the adjacent parcel register, against both titles, a minimum 1.5 metre private maintenance easement that provides for:

(i) a 0.30 metre eave encroachment easement with the requirement that the eaves must not be closer than 0.90 metres to the eaves on a building on an adjacent parcel; and

(ii) a 0.60 metre footing encroachment easement;

[Ne7en]

My real property report shows a 1.5m access R/W from the property line. If I am reading this correctly, it means he should be building on the same zero lot line as his house? This is concerning to me because I plan to build a garage in the future and was planning on building on the same zero-lot line my house is on. If he builds his on the property line how would it ever be possible to finish the exterior or my garage if they shared the same property line?

Thanks for all the responses/input.

[You Need a Thneed]

The garage probably requires a DP from the city, in which case, you could probably prevent it from happening, in you wanted to. Minimum side yard for most accessory buildings is 0.6 metres, or 2 feet.

There are guidelines to make a building built right to a property line work.