The Peak Of Interesting Developments
My girlfriend’s parents were going to build a house in a new development in a lot that was in front of their neighbours-to-be. The lot was on a hill, so it was in front of the neighbours but below them. The neighbours decided they wanted to build a one-story rancher on the lower part of their lot instead of building something like a two-story on the higher side of the lot. They assumed that whoever was going to build in front of them would only build a one-story themselves, which would keep their view unobstructed. Having a great view was apparently very important to them and a big selling point on the lot.
[Parents] started to build their two-story house on their lot with tall peaked gables. When [Neighbours] realized that their view would indeed be obstructed, they offered to buy the lot from [Parents]. [Parents] offered them the price of the lot (which had increased in value since it was originally purchased) plus the cost of the materials already purchased for the build. They waited for a response but didn’t get one, so they just continued on with their build.
A month or two later, [Neighbours] responded to the offer saying they’d accept it. By that time, of course, more time and money had been put into the build, so [Parents] told them they could still buy the lot, but the price had increased. [Neighbours] rejected the offer.
In this new development, all houses were required to have a two-foot overhang, but many of the homes hadn’t actually been following the rule, and the developers hadn’t been enforcing it. [Parents] also decided to not follow the rule. [Neighbours] then went to the developer to remind them that [Parents] needed to have two-foot overhangs, thinking that it would decrease the pitch of the roof, meaning the gables wouldn’t be so high.
The developers told [Parents] to make sure they had the two-foot overhangs. [Parents] went to the architect to find a way to keep the tall gables they wanted, while also having the two-foot overhangs. The architect told them to just raise the roof two feet to create the two-foot overhang, so the angles on the roof wouldn’t be impacted at all. [Parents] kept building with these new specs. The developers approached [Parents] to enquire about the overhangs and whether their roof was impacted at all. The look on his face when [Parents] told him that they just raised the whole roof by two feet was priceless.
[Neighbours] avoided the family for the entire five years they lived there.