dbd33

I am one of the many, ask anyone living on a street where there's infill building in progress. The builders and their apologists are the minority.

It may be that only some of the neighbours flat out despise the builders but in a street of thirty houses being hated by the occupants of only five puts one in a small minority even if the occupants of the other buildings only dislike you.

Self-builders must live for the day that the thing's finished and they can move away.

Novocastrian

Actually I agree with this and am suffering through the experience you describe right now. I live in an older neighbourhood where most of the housing dates from the 1950's (OK older by Canadian standards ). A brash youngish childless couple (DINKs) bought a smallish house on a smallish lot opposite me last early last year and proceeded to knock it flat.

They are replacing it with a garishly tasteless monster home which overfills the lot size (technically it's within code, but they've pushed every limit to the extreme). It's got three (3) garages!

It's bad enough for us being forced to look at the nouveau riche's idea of acceptable architecture and having had construction traffic block the road for months, but the immediate neighbours on the same side of the street are furious. They no longer have any privacy in their back yards.

This charming young couple may possibly find it rather difficult to make friends. I for one rudely ignore them whenever possible.

dbd33

The construction next door was a plank in my decision to give up the Beach and move to the country. That shack twice caught fire during the building. I don't blame anyone for torching it but having fires next door and the constant danger from the builders dropping stuff on to my patio and deck was wearing. Having the builders break my window so as to plug their power cords in and steal my electricity got on my tits as did them blocking the lane and dumping construction rubbish over the fence. "Yallah, yallah" they'd yell five on weekend mornings. It's lucky I didn't then have a gun.

Ever the contrarian, my ex delights in the McMansion being thrown up next to her. "It's horrible, of course. The street is often full of trucks so we have to park a block away but it's going to list for two million and my lot will be worth more. I won't be next to it for long." Why she thinks a lot next to biggest monstrosity drug money can buy will be valuable escapes me.

Tuppence

Ducks cos of earlier thread started about finding new / renovated house near Toronto in older neighbourhood

At least we want to buy it done, and not be the actual offender!

Novocastrian

I know the type. The DINKs are such folk.

I asked them why they wanted to go to the trouble of knocking down a perfectly decent, if modest, house on my street rather than buy a monstrosity on the "Heritage Estate", hah!, about 800 m away?

Their reply was, "Oh, we just love this neighbourhood"!

When I asked them with eyeballs bulging and neck-veins throbbing "Why the **** are you fukin ruining it then?" The reply was, "Oh you'll have developers knocking on your door when we're finished"

"I DON"T WANT DEVELOPERS KNOCKING ON MY DOOR YOU BLEEDING SOULLESS IGNORAMOUS".

dbd33

The ex will be gone from Canada by June at the latest so she's happy to have more money and her prejudices about both new buildings and the sorts of people who live in this expletive-deleted country confirmed. She doesn't actually want to live next to the Italo-Chinese dream home.

On thing that irked me in the Beach was that there's now a by-law requiring that houses be set back from the street, the old ones aren't, so the new ones have windows which afford a direct view into the upper storey rooms of the older houses. I often waved my bits at the occupants of the horror next door but they seemed uninterested.

cruikshank lived in a, rented, house in North York where the landlord also owned the house next door. The second house was demolished and through creative negotiation with the city he was able to build something that was at the lot line at ground level and wider on the next level, it actually intruded into the 'shank's airspace. That, I think, is likely to be the worst infill I'll ever see.

People who play golf, people who build infill housing, the Bulger killers, hard to tell who one should dislike most.

Auld Yin

I often waved my bits at the occupants of the horror next door but they seemed uninterested.

Perhaps they thought there was very little to be interested in!

Auld Yin

When I asked them with eyeballs bulging and neck-veins throbbing "Why the **** are you fukin ruining it then?"

I can only assume he wasn't built like Mike Holmes then.

Novocastrian

Oh, I didn't know that. Is that a net positive or not? Actually, don't answer that, it sounds like a subject to discuss over beer.


Past tense, she moved?

Well my neighbours on this side play golf. I can live with that most of the time. The infill builders are persona non grata for ever and ever amen. My neighbour on the north side keeps himself to himself (he's 91). If I see young boys showing up at his place regularly then I could rank all three categories.

Novocastrian

Did you know that Mike Holmes is a midget? The house these Dinks are putting up might make him throw up nonetheless.

dbd33

It's not straightforward but, all in all, it's the right thing to happen. It's been coming for ages but hasn't happened due to vagaries of the waiting lists for operations under the Swiss health service (that's all the meme chose everywhere).

Yes, but only a couple of blocks. They've moved many times since I've known them but all within the same school district.

dbd33

Perhaps so. Of course, never having seen another male set I cannot say.

Novocastrian

A consequence of your disadvantaged educational experience in Blighty.

If you'd gone to a proper school like what I did you'd have gone nudie swimming with all the other victims.

T-Pot

Thanks for the advice all, and the thread drift made me laugh.

At least I know now that if we take this route we will not be building a house anywhere near dbd33 or Novocastrian!

iaink

Maybe not relevent, but I found this online while looking for something for another thread.

Its regarded as the bible for new construction in Canada...might be of interest to someone out there.

Its quite a large file to download though...

http://www.easy-share.com/1904011130...nstruction.pdf